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What’s on the Minds of: CX Executives
Sophia Blackett
July 23, 2021 • 4 minutes
As part of LivePerson’s Executive Community, members enjoy small-group collaboration with peers who are among the first to drive Conversational strategies for the world’s leading brands. One of these programs allows members to stay connected through an ongoing calendar of virtual peer exchange calls. Case in point: LivePerson recently hosted a peer exchange with 21 customer experience leaders from industries like financial services, retail, and more. Over the course of the hour, they talked best practices for asynchronous messaging, how they’re managing CX in the shift to messaging, and their stances on emojis in messaging.
Take a look at some of the ideas discussed below.
Best practices for asynchronous messaging
As leaders assessed best practices for asynchronous messaging, the conversation focused in on agent skillsets and training. Whether a brand is shifting from voice to messaging or chat to messaging, there are a number of factors to consider in ensuring agents can provide the best possible customer experience.
The following was offered by various executives on the call:
- Shifting from chat to messaging can be a more seamless transfer of skills (than voice to messaging) in that agents are already trained in text-based communication. However, there are nuances in language, response cadence, and use of bots and AI to facilitate conversations that agents still need guidance around.
- There are specific KPIs to look at with messaging, such as average response time, first response time, and average number of responses. It’s important to recognize that customer expectations vary depending on their entry point. For example, customers entering via web may expect a more synchronous experience than those using mobile messaging channels.
- Personality of the agent, such as whether they are introverted or extroverted, can be predictors of an agent’s success with asynchronous messaging (and whether they enjoy it!).
Managing CX in the shift to messaging
Leaders on the call recognize that making the move to asynchronous messaging is necessary and valuable for their business and their customer experience — but they looked to their peers for advice in successfully making that shift.
LivePerson uses our proprietary 4E Framework™, an analytic approach that serves as the foundation for classifying metrics into specific categories that complement each other and guarantee success. The 4E’s are: Efficiency, Effectiveness, Emotion, and Effort. This approach is used by customers on the call as an effective way to monitor the success of messaging, similar to how voice calls are monitored in the call center. This led to a realization that lumping mobile and web messaging customers into the same queue was a mistake as there are different expectations for response times.
Another tip leaders shared when making the move to messaging was the need to pay attention to “double ticketing” — where customers send a message, but also stay in the voice call queue to hedge their bets. A bot can help mitigate this issue by addressing common inquiries immediately.
Emojis in messaging
Because asynchronous messaging happens in channels we also use with friends and family, there are differing opinions around if and how to use emojis when engaging with customers.
Leaders on the call shared their approaches to emojis and other tips with their peers:
- One executive explained that they have a list of a few approved emojis agents can use when communicating with customers.
- Another executive did training sessions with agents on where and when to use emojis, with the biggest lesson being to mirror the customer’s level of emoji usage.
- In addition to emojis, leaders implemented training on language style to improve clarity in communication in general, as well as by situation. For example, mobile messaging requires short bits of text that are easy to read. Ensuring clarity in communication can help with key metrics like first contact resolution (FCR).
For a full account of this discussion between CX executives across industries, take a look at our executive summary.