2019 is the year of the customer. This is how those whose main mission is to investigate market developments and the possibilities for business expansion express themselves categorically. A study conducted by Accenture and reviewed by the prestigious Customer Experience Magazine points precisely in the most critical direction for many of today's large companies.

We have heard and read ad nauseam that those who are not prepared for change will disappear. But when you put facts to statements, the reality is even more extreme: according to the report, as many as 2 out of 3 large companies are facing really difficult circumstances. To use business jargon: they face high levels of industry disruption.

What is happening so that the hitherto all-powerful lords of the business are on the verge of collapse? Nothing more simple, but complex, as the binomial in which we are experts in BRAINTRUST: Customer Experience. According to a recent Gartner study, two thirds (64%) of people put Customer Experience above price. So forget about price wars: customers don't care, and the trend doesn't seem to be reversing. Competitive pricing, yes, but not as the only strategic factor. "Well, but young customers (the ones that matter) do go for price", someone might think. According to another study by American Express, the millennial population is willing to spend up to 21% more if in return they get a Customer Experience that can be described as excellent.

In the light of these data, the digital magazine has drawn up a list of five ways to drastically improve the Experience, which BRAINTRUST would like to share with our readers.

1. Facilitate contact with customers.

So interested are millennials that the first question every large company should ask itself is: what is their preferred method of contact? The old-fashioned telephone? An email that you don't know who will receive it in the company? A contact form that shows how busy the CEO and his front row are, and therefore there is no way to contact them? This is 2019, contact is called chat. It's no coincidence that Facebook and WhatsApp (i.e. Facebook version B) have designed apps specifically designed to help businesses use instant messaging. Do you like to chat? If the answer is no, it's easy: think twice. Either chat, or get out of the market.

2. Use AI to relieve congestion.

Another aspect that we work on regularly at BRAINTRUST is the use of Artificial Intelligence as a technological support to facilitate faster, more reliable and effective solutions. AI (AI) is so advanced that it can be linked to the previous point to establish conversations, but also to help those responsible for Customer Experience to identify, to the millimetre, the map of customer needs. An opportunity that should be seized as it means time savings for the customer, which is a variable mentioned by two out of three people as the best thing a company can contribute to provide a good experience, according to a recent study by Forrester.

3. Focus on staff satisfaction

The whip to produce more, without getting up from the chair, watching every euro cent spent by the employee on duty, and deducting every minute of his or her non-productive time, is out of fashion. It's no good, it doesn't work, it's not the key to doing business. We are in other times, those of Customer Experience, which are inevitably linked to Employee Experience policies. A competitive labour market is the consequence of a more prosperous economy, and it is also the reason why the companies with the best talent retention actions are the best prepared to compete in the new scenarios. Remember that your employees are also your brand ambassadors, and that they are the first candidates, if they are sufficiently motivated, to test the product or service you intend to put on the market. The equation is easy: do your employees feel satisfied working in your company? Good. Would they pack their bags and go with the first person who offers them something more motivating? Wrong.

4. Eliminate rigid trade structures

"And hurry up, the offer ends today". Wrong. The commercial policies of the past, based on premises such as scarcity, haste or insistence, are the enemy of success in today's business world. Not to mention the internal commercial structures where nothing can change because of a history of dependencies, hierarchies and ramifications with too much stiffness. Customer needs are changing, and your structures must be prepared for those changes. Success is synonymous with finding feedback quickly, giving the right response and accompanying the customer in the internal development of a product or service. Reorganise yourself. Society has already done this.

5. Co-innovate to improve customer experience

As a result of the above, the exclusivity of the good is no longer a key business factor. We are in times of a shared economy, where value is generated by the ability to add external suppliers and generate horizontal integration dynamics, and also by the ease with which customers can be incorporated into the company's innovation. The obligation of the new entrepreneur and his or her top managers is to focus on what the company is really excellent at, and to make use of specialised professionals who can be anywhere. There is no one better than a client to guide a company's lines of innovation: what it lacks, what it lacks, what it needs to modify and what it needs to strengthen. Courage, there are more candidates than ever to be the CINO (chief innovation officer).

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