A successful improvement effort begins not by taking an existing portfolio and digitizing it wholesale, but by radically simplifying both the customer experience and the product or service at its heart. One telecom provider reduced its product portfolio by 80 percent before streamlining its digital experience and supporting platform. After rationalizing its offerings, eliminating some process steps, and using readily available tools to automate others, it managed to cut its sign-up time for new customers by two-thirds.
Resolving problems is an area that many customer-facing businesses struggle to get right. Given self-serve options and simple guidance, customers can often fix problems for themselves, but companies don’t always provide enough of this support, or communicate it clearly enough when they do. Another stumbling block is having customer care that mimics a company’s broader organizational set-up, complete with product silos. Customers dealing with a credit-card issue and a mortgage issue can often experience two entirely different processes at the same bank, and find themselves being transferred from one function to another because each group can help with only one aspect of their problem.
