Some information and background about Ajay Nambiar:
Ajay is recognized amongst the Top 150 Global Customer Experience Thought Leader and influencers with 28+ years of Business Operations and CX expertise across Hospitality, Technology, and Real Estate sectors. Proficient in building a) high-performance teams, b) scalable, multi-location, omnichannel systems, and certified processes. Established many “first ever” business practices that are used as benchmarks in the industry. A self-driven, logical, passionate, results and execution-oriented go-getter who thrives in steady-state and VUCA business environments. An avid Marathoner and Triathlete
Ajay is also well recognized in the CX conferencing space – he has over 400+hours of experience at both international (CCW, IQPC, World AI & RPA summit, etc.) and Domestic ( Economic Times Strategy summit, Customer Fest, Service Quality Excellence summit, etc.) conferences as a Chair, speaker, moderator, and Panelist.
Online commerce was booming in 2020, and so did consumer reviews. – How can brands better utilize this data to improve their customers’ experience?
A fundamental insight, I call it “thermometer reading,” is customer feedback – Social media has ensured the temperature reading of any initiative is instant and publicly shared. This is the best platform and opportunity to course-correct and manage customers’ expectations – define what can happen quickly and what will take time and share that – customers are reasonable when they see genuine efforts to recover service. There is, of course, a small percentage that creates noise for the attention, but one should focus on the core issue and not the comment to glean vital statistics of the health of the company’s performance in the customer’s eyes.
What is one element that must always be considered when working on a CXM (customer experience management) strategy?
Keep the customer upfront and center in every process, decision, initiative, automation. You will never go wrong!
Do you think personalization and customer-centricity are going to become increasingly more relevant in the coming year? How so?
It has always been relevant in a hyper-competitive market landscape. The differentiator is often in decimals (like Formula 1 racing), and it is important to understand transactions versus relationships. Customers would like a blend of self-service for transactions and engaged and informed decisions in immersive conversations with the company’s front door – the CX team. The Key is to ensure while the transaction queries have a consistent, always-on, and always accurate dimension to them, the immersive contact team is well trained, empowered to handle the one-on-one engagements. Customers will never leave such brands and will also pay a premium for the service quality they receive
What are some of the ways companies can strive to eliminate the CX Gap?
At the outset, establishing a service design that dovetails the company’s culture and the product attributes. A well-laid service design (CJM) will go a long way in creating a seamless and customer-friendly service delivery. Once established and validated with customer feedback, the process must be constantly re-evaluated for upgrades, improvements, digitization, etc., to keep at the cutting edge of changing customer dynamics.
What’s the most insightful book you read in 2020?
No Rules Rules – an outstanding book on the HR culture of Netflix
Ajay’s predictions for the future of CX
What are your predictions for trends in customer experience in the coming year
With the pandemic wreaking havoc worldwide, this year will see quicker and resolute adoption of technology not just to solve the problem of no face-to-face interactions, but also to create a virtual service experience environment for customers which is not only easy to access and on-demand, but also with AI-enabled intelligence, will ensure customers get speedier, accurate and consistent responses to their queries and video will provide virtual assistance right at the customers’ doorsteps. CX teams will learn to adapt to a WFH professional work schedule, while proximity to the family will give them a better Work-life balance.
Last but not least, what is your favorite CX metric?
TAT (Turn Around Time) without doubt
