By
Erica Marois
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Date Published: December 12, 2013 - Last Updated August 22, 2018
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Comments
Customer journey was one of the most widely used terms in our industry in 2013. The terms has become so popular because we know that effectively mapping a customer’s journey helps put the contact center in the driver’s seat in terms of managing the customer experience.
But how can contact centers more effectively map the journey?
It starts with a true understanding of the customer journey.
On November 21 we hosted a complimentary webinar with Genesys and UPMC Health Plan. Ian Jacobs, Customer Experience Evangelist for Genesys helped to illustrate the customer journey well by using a real-world example.
He compared the customer journey to the process of registering your child to enroll in school, and then getting them there on the first day. Every step along the way—from filling out paperwork, to making sure your child is up-to-date on immunizations, makes up a part of the journey. The journey itself could (and probably will) include multiple touch points and many different parties (ex: a call or email to the school district, a visit to the health department, etc.).
The same is true of most customer journeys. In fact, 50% of customer interactions now take place across a multi-event, multi-interaction journey, and it’s the contact center’s job to make the journey a seamless and positive one.
UPMC Health Plan takes great pride in the steps they’ve taken to offer proactive and personalized service that’s transformed the customer journey for their members. Their health care concierge program is tailored to offer personalized service to today’s multichannel customers across a variety of touch points.
Upon joining the UPMC health plan, members are paired with a personal customer service representative (aka a healthcare concierge). The health care concierge starts by calling the member to introduce themselves and welcome them to UPMC. The concierge then reaches out to the member a minimum of 4 times per year—to say happy birthday, notify of any health plan changes, offer reminders about preventative healthcare, etc.
In addition, each time a member calls in to the UPMC service center, they are automatically routed to their personal concierge. And the concierge is empowered with CTI screen pops that contain detailed member information and a record of all previous conversations across all channels.
You can meet UPMC Health Care Concierge Linwood by watching this short video.
The results of this redesigned customer journey? UPMC now has a Medicaid customer retention rate of 97%, and has seen a growth rate of 14.4% in its Medicare Division.
Ian Jacobs says this is a typical outcome, as a better customer journey almost always leads to better business outcomes. In the end, it’s not single touch points that drive the highest levels of customer satisfaction. Cumulative customer experiences that take place across multiple touch points and in multiple channels lead to true customer satisfaction.
A few statistics worth noting:
- Journeys are 36% more correlated to CSAT than individual touch points
- Journeys show a 33% greater reduction in churn than touch points
- Journeys create 28% more promoters than touch points
- Journeys are 19% more likely to influence renewals than touch points
Perhaps this is why more than 40% of our webinar audience members indicated that they have plans to use customer journey mapping in 2014.
Is your contact center planning to use customer journey mapping next year? Be sure to watch this complimentary 60 minute webinar, and share it with your team. You can register to view this on-demand version of the webinar here.
You’ll learn:
- The benefits of implementing an Outbound Call Program and Customer Loyalty Programs such as Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- How the healthcare concierge program at UPMC Health Plan works
- How your contact center can personalize service and redesign the customer journey in the upcoming year
- What technology is needed to design successful customer journeys
In what unique ways has your contact center improved the customer journey? Share your success stories in the comments below, or email me at [email protected].