Hi Alexandra, tell us about yourself and your background.
I have the pleasure of working as Head of Marketing and CX at a B2B SaaS company called Avinode Group, and we provide essential digital products and services to the business aviation industry. I started my career 16 years ago and became a digital producer at an agency in Gothenburg, Sweden and I have worked with digital solutions and marketing since. I’ve always been passionate about continuous improvement and I love to learn.
How did you first start working in the CX space?
Working with marketing I have always found it challenging when creating brand assets and campaigns that you don’t know what the customer will experience when it’s gotten in the funnel. Are we as a company living up to the promise we make to the customer in our branding? So a few years ago I became Head of Marketing & CX, and the CX team consists of marketing, Customer onboarding teams, and dedicated CX resources. We are working very closely with the other departments to ensure that we are consistent and continuously improve based on the learnings we do.
What are some of the common misunderstandings related to customer experience?
I think the biggest one is that it’s about customer service. And that only having the customers provide a rating means that you are actively working with customer experience.
Have you seen any interesting new trends in eCommerce this year?
What I have thought about are the delivery times that generally have decreased and that new delivery companies have emerged and are competing with the old ones who haven’t had competition before. The new companies are more customer-focused as they are flexible, transparent, and fast. The fact that eCommerce has increased due to the pandemic and companies has had to transition to ‘online first’ is a positive trend which at least I have waited for a long time.
eCommerce boomed in 2020, and consumers started leaving more product reviews online. How can we make the most out of this momentum?
Transparency. People aren’t stupid and an online shopping experience allows you to compare and read reviews and make an informed purchase. If a product has gotten a lot of bad reviews, the company should acknowledge that and make a change to the product.
What are some CX companies and solutions you’re keeping your eyes on right now?
Right now Zapier is particularly interesting, as we are using different solutions and touchpoints interacting with our customers, and want to push customer data into our CRM and Zapier allows for that.
So many things changed in 2020. While some things are going to return to “normal,” what are new trends and habits you think will stay with us in the long term?
I think that working remotely is going to stay. We have proved that we still can be effective and better care for the work-life balance as there is less commute and more opportunities for physical activity. In general, I think we have all become more empathetic towards each other and health is more important than anything.
Do you believe focus groups are still relevant in the era of eCommerce? Why?
Absolutely, data collection is great, and having qualitative data is key when making business decisions that will have a customer impact.
Last but not least, what is your favorite CX metric?
It’s not one metric for me, it’s the combination of several metrics like CSAT, CES, NPS, activity, and engagement. Those combined provide a Customer health score and gives a helicopter view of the state of the customer. Should there be a decline in any of the metrics- it allows you to act on that and understand the reason behind it. I recommend that to all SaaS companies.
