As consumer demands for best-in-class customer service continue to rise, the burden of expectation on companies is staggering. Customers are no longer surprised when needs are anticipated, instead it is simply expected. Customer service representatives face a daunting challenge to meet expectations, and many companies are ill equipped to empower these representatives to do it.
Customer loyalty can takes years to cultivate, and can be lost overnight by a single poor experience. Mitigating the likelihood of a bad experience, therefore, is paramount within the realm of customer service. But companies often lack the resources, infrastructure, and strategic direction to create a customer service capability agile and informed enough to avoid those bad experiences.
To prevent a poor experience, and to anticipate customer needs, one must have a full picture of the customer journey. Not a new concept, many companies have touchpoints mapped out of a typical customer experience, and that mitigates a fair share of potential bad interactions. However, demand is now reaching a level where simply an overview of typical customer journeys is not enough. Deep dives into the episodic events that make up the journey are needed to see the interwoven threads of interactions across the multiple channels by which B2C and B2B (to an extent) companies serve their customers.
