For many businesses, a high quality Customer Experience gives them a competitive edge, drawing customers away from “the other guy.” But what if you provide a service in an industry where customers traditionally haven’t had a preference or weren’t given an option about which services they use? Yes, CX matters to you, too!
Times are a-changin’ for companies who typically enjoyed being the only choice—like utility companies, telecom providers, and public works. The menu of options for consumers continues to grow. For example, as utility companies think about ways to expand their offering to include more sustainable solutions—like solar panels, batteries, and other energy efficiency programs—they face competition from innovative startups and green-energy superpowers (oh hey, Tesla) that aren’t bound by a consumer’s zip code.
Many commodities companies are also racing to provide more customization and control for customers by leveraging data and AI to do everything from allowing customers to predict usage (and save money) or streamlining troubleshooting and support through chat bots or automated text and email responses (which saves time and money for you).
Translation: CX is everyone’s game, and you don’t want to be left sitting on the bench. Here are several tips for commodity businesses looking to level-up their customer experience:
- Understand your customers: Get to know your customers, their problems, pain points, and what they value. Then zero in on how you can make their lives better through your services.
- Focus on digital solutions: Part of making customers’ lives better is often through the convenience of digital solutions (like anticipating needs and automating time-consuming or cumbersome tasks).
- Build goodwill: Cultivating a sense of trust and loyalty can’t be underestimated. You may be their only choice now for a particular service, but that might not always be the case.
Read more about these tips here.
Bonus tip—Don’t Snooze on Your IT Infrastructure
Quality CX is only as good as the infrastructure that supports it. Commodity companies work with thousands (and often millions) of customers. That’s a lot of data that’s being collected, stored, and used. And that’s a lot of unhappy people when there’s a breakdown, outage, or some other problem. While what the customer actually “experiences” is some kind of real-world interaction with your company, what they don’t see is the underlying data and technology infrastructure that keeps things running smoothly.
If customer experience is a strategic priority for your company in the coming years (and it should be), Inteleca can partner with you to ensure your IT systems and infrastructure support your goals. Contact us today to speak with one of our experts about your IT strategy or hardware needs.