The cost of NOT investing in CX, Daniela Illuminati

Guest post by Daniela Illuminati, Director of Operations, Site Lead and CX Innovator

At TELUS International, we partner with companies that, like us, understand the value of customer experience (CX) as opposed to viewing it as a cost. For a long time, and still nowadays to a large extent, CX has been used as a synonym of customer support and treated as one department within a business. But, in reality, customer experience is so much more than that, as it encompasses every aspect of the business.

CX is the sum of all the touchpoints throughout a customer lifecycle that build their overall experience with a brand or a product, from when a potential customer first hears about a brand/product through marketing campaigns, to when they become a customer and ask for support, to when they recommend that brand or product or are instead disappointed by it and abandon it for a better option. Because of that, CX is cross-functional by nature and requires companies to take a step back from their traditionally siloed structure and reorganise around the needs of their customers.

CX needs to be a company’s North Star towards which all functions and parts of the business are oriented, and based on which, all decisions are made. The landscape becomes more and more complex when you layer on top another trend: technology. Innovations in digital solutions and artificial intelligence have led to a dramatic shift in how CX works and created opportunities for more seamless, efficient and effective service. Brands want more sophisticated solutions that can deliver the experience that their customers now expect in an increasingly digital world.

The challenge for CX providers is not only to deliver, but to keep on innovating. Because CX requires a cross-functional approach, every part of an organisation and its partners need to play their part. At the top level, a company needs to set its CX strategy and goals, and every unit within the company, from engineering and design to marketing and sales, needs to contribute to those high-level goals through KPIs and metrics that are aligned to the overarching customer-centric strategy.

A disconnected approach will lead to a disconnected experience for the customer. On the contrary, an interconnected approach will create synergy, enable the exploration of new opportunities, and, crucially for the modern business, allow the identification of the right metrics to be used to assess the progress and continued success of a company.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the less a customer ‘notices’ their experience with you, the better. When a customer comes to you with a problem, they don’t want to be wowed by your response; they want their problem solved, and they want it solved without hassle. Customers want an experience that feels effortless so they can go right back to using your product or service with as little work as possible on their end.

Even if their problem is solved, a high-effort experience can drive a customer away, while a low-effort one can create real loyalty. That’s backed up by research by Gartner which showed that 96% of customers who reported a high-effort experience with a company were disloyal, compared to just 9% of customers who had a low- effort experience.

The goal of CX innovation should be to reduce, or even better eliminate friction for customers, replacing ‘one size fits all’ approaches with a service that is smart, contextual, and tailored to the customer. For example, we recently introduced the intelligent TELUS International Assistant, an intuitive chatbot that helps our customers to solve simple problems quickly by analysing their requests and sharing solutions from a central repository of media.

This AI platform, built by our own team of data solutions experts, reduces repetitive interactions for our team and allows them to focus on more complex problems, lowers wait times for customers, and streamlines the customer experience. Data analytics and AI allow us to do that by creating systems that understand customer profiles, can respond efficiently to problems, and can even preempt friction by leveraging predictive analytics.

Technology cannot replace human interaction, but can definitely enhance it. At its core, CX is about people, both the customers as well as those helping them and the innovations that  allow our team members to lead the way on digital CX. Innovation needs to be prioritised and ongoing  – what counts as low-effort today could be perceived as burdensome in the future, so companies need to keep up and continue to invest in CX to stay relevant and find new ways to create positive, effortless experiences for their customers.

Like any aspect of business, falling behind your competitors comes with costs and with the rapid advances being made in CX, the costs of sidelining it are high. Just like the brands we serve are experts in their industries, TELUS International is an expert in CX and leads digital CX trends instead of following them, so we can always keep our partners at the cutting edge.

About TELUS International Ireland

TELUS International Ireland is a leading Irish-based provider of digitally-enabled customer experience (CX) and business process solutions, and is a key location in the TELUS International family. It has two CX and IT delivery centers strategically located in Dublin and Cork as well as a site in Ballina providing AI data solutions to support  many of the world’s top brands.

In December 2019, TELUS International completed its acquisition of Voxpro, with the sale seeing the ownership of the business, including facilities, business operations and employees transfer to TELUS International.

With almost 2,000 team members, TELUS International Ireland is committed to promoting and celebrating diversity and inclusion within its team, company and the community where it lives, works and serves. This includes inclusive, high-impact volunteer days like TELUS Days of Giving.

More about Daniela Illuminati – Director of Operations and Dublin Site Lead

Daniela Illuminati joined TELUS International in April 2018 as Senior Operations Manager, and shortly afterwards became Site Lead for the Dublin office and Director of Operations. She is also a member of the TI Ireland Senior Leadership Team.

Daniela is an experienced leader with extensive background in online operations in the tech industry, having worked for almost 10 years in Google Ireland, supporting the AdWords Sales organisation, by providing customer service, technical support as well as sales consultancy services to both SMBs and global accounts in the Google Adwords and YouTube network.

She then continued her career with Facebook Ireland, where she led the EMEA Intellectual Property Operations team, as well as set up and launched a new Global IP Escalations team. Daniela has a wealth of experience in operations and driving growth, spanning from CX to Content Moderation.

Daniela is extremely passionate about diversity and creating an inclusive culture and work environment. As such, she is an active member of the Connections Committee, TELUS International’s Women’s Network.

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