How Organizations in the Retail, Healthcare, and Financial Services Industries are Pioneering Customer Experience

Since the pandemic, a focus on customer experience has launched the top-performing brands – or, as Forrester calls them, the ‘CX elite’ – even further ahead of their competition. Companies like Etsy, Trader Joe’s, and Navy Federal Credit Union leveraged their deep understanding of their customers to develop a loyal consumer base.

And while a focus on customer experiences is a non-negotiable growth strategy for businesses in any industry, I’ll highlight organizations from the retail, healthcare, and financial services industries that are leading the charge in transforming their customer experiences.

Retail: From Great Customer Service to Exceptional Experiences

Retail organizations have long been considered the pioneers of customer service – after all, retail is where the phrase ‘the customer is always right’ was born.

But responding to customer concerns quickly with a friendly attitude isn’t enough in today’s experience economy. Amazon is setting the gold standard in providing customers with everything they could possibly want, often before they even know they want it, and with shockingly short delivery times. If they want to keep up, retailers need to anticipate their customers’ needs - which means understanding their customers as deeply as possible.

While many brands retain a brick-and-mortar presence in larger cities, today’s market demands that retail businesses have a strong digital footprint. After the pandemic, in-person-only models aren’t really an option anymore.

For example, when popular restaurant chain Chipotle came to Avtex for help improving their customer loyalty, we knew that the key was designing and implementing a sophisticated process for capturing customer data and producing actionable insights. This digital solution resulted in the merging of more than 400 million customer records and influenced a projected $280 million in growth.

Schwan’s Home Delivery, a delivery-based food retailer, needed help transforming their CX to align with their extremely high standards. We performed a thorough analysis of their current state and guided them through a complete redesign of their customer experience strategy, resulting in a 100% customer-first business model.

By centering on customers for every decision they make, retailers deliver the kinds of experiences that foster customer loyalty and ultimately drive increased revenue.

Financial Services: Taking Personal Interactions into the Digital Space

The financial services industry deals with extremely personal customer data and often-sensitive needs, so it’s not surprising that it calls for highly personalized experiences. In the past, customer interactions tended to happen in-person, but in today’s digital world consumers are increasingly interested in self-service capabilities.

Unlike other industries, going digital for credit unions and banks presents some serious challenges, from fighting fraud, to ensuring the security of data, to integrating fintech and biometrics. Making sure consumers have seamless, secure digital access to their money, banking capabilities, and investment resources helps financial services organizations build loyalty and grow their member base.

Firefly Credit Union is one example of Member Experience leader. In fact, they don’t refer to themselves as a credit union, or even a bank – their aspiration is to be a financial experience company. Meanwhile, American Family Insurance, another CX leader, is working to make the claims process effortless - differentiating themselves in a crowded insurance market by simplifying a notoriously friction-filled process.

Avtex helped Neighborhood Credit Union deliver a similarly seamless experience to their customers by revamping their contact center. We advised them on which platform would best serve their agents and their customers, then aided in the implementation of the new system, resulting in a major improvement to NCU’s ability to deliver exceptional member interactions.

In the case of AllRegs, a content library providing resources to mortgage professionals, when one of their highly specialized apps began to lose functionality and reliability, their CX was negatively impacted. We helped them rebuild the app from scratch on a better, more user-friendly platform, which allowed them to keep delivering the seamless experiences their customers had come to expect.

Because the industry is centered around one of the most sensitive and confidential areas of any consumer’s life, customer expectations of financial services organizations are high. By delivering strong data security and comprehensive, personalized education, banks and credit unions build long-term relationships with their customers.

Healthcare: Transforming Lives and Delivering Empathy

The healthcare industry is facing a shifting industry paradigm – disruption to business models, the rise of virtual health, siloed data, and heightened patient expectations are just a few of the pressures payers and providers are navigating day in and day out.

Healthcare is complex, and delivering exceptional patient experiences isn’t easy, but Avtex can simplify things by combining our cutting edge end-to-end design and orchestration services. We can help you build a digital front door, better understand your audience, improve your maturity, and enhance your overall healthcare experience.

With our support, AvMed was able to develop a deeper understanding of their members, which in turn helped them anticipate and predict customers’ needs, deliver more meaningful member experiences, and identify opportunities for further growth in new and existing markets.

LifeGift came to us for help transforming their contact center to better support their employees, who perform life-saving organ procurement activities. We assisted them in transitioning their contact center to the cloud, which supported their move to remote work and improved their overall capabilities.

Healthcare is a complex, sensitive area, and consumers need a lot of support from their payers and providers. CX leaders in this space know that, to deliver exceptional experiences, they need to lead with empathy and make the process as seamless as possible.

While the entire economy is beginning to rely more and more on CX, organizations in the retail, healthcare, and financial services industries especially are emerging as customer experience pioneers who champion change. These CX leaders understand the importance of delivering exceptional experiences, and they’re willing to make big moves to set themselves apart from their competitors.

At Avtex, we have experience helping clients in a wide range of industries assess their current CX state, identify areas for improvement, and design and implement strategies that help them deliver differentiated experiences. If you’re ready to put your customers first, reach out.