The Only Solution to a Great Customer Experience is a Connected Solution

I love running. Lately, though, I have struggled with a sore knee. So last week, I booked an appointment with my clinic, and then went in for an MRI. Almost immediately, I noticed something surprising about the way they had structured the patient experience.

 It wasn’t the reception area – that was comfortable. It wasn’t the wait – I got SMS reminders so I knew exactly when my appointment would start. It wasn’t the care provider – he was pleasent and knowledgeable. And it wasn’t the checkout process – that was efficient.

At the clinic door, there were two kiosks. One was for check in. The other was for feedback. They were from two different companies. That means that each company that put a kiosk in the clinic gets to store and manage the data gathered at its kiosk – one on the way in, the other on the way out. And that means no connection between the start and finish of the customer journey – and no truly aggregate, useful business intelligence from the data points.

Imagine if they had a singular, fully connected customer journey solution! They could understand and improve every step from appointment and check in, to waiting time, to feedback, and offered granular feedback about each visitor.

The Perspective of Patient and Professional

A few months ago, I joined Qmatic. During that time, I’ve seen first-hand how a complete, closed loop customer journey solution produces intelligence that companies can use to structure every step from appointment through post-service follow-up. With a single solution, they can learn important information about details like wait times, how individual service providers perform, and what offerings lead to a great experience for the customer. The combination of information and application results in a healthier company staffed by more empowered people, serving customers better.

In the case of my clinic, the upside of the two customer journey kiosks the clinic has in place is that it shows they’re interested in creating a smooth check in process and in gathering feedback. The downside is that those two things aren’t connected.

With two vendors providing solutions, the information is probably isolated and disconnected. It’s almost impossible to get a complete picture of how each step is producing or hampering the best possible customer experience. In my case, it means that the clinic didn’t know that I was happy with my wait time and the facilities, but that I could have appreciated better directions. When vendors only focus on discrete details, they miss the benefit of having information that can unify and improve the whole customer journey and experience.

The Value of a Single Customer Journey Solution

Part of why a fully connected customer journey solution is valuable is because it answers all of the questions. And over time, it builds a robust body of business intelligence that tells a strategic story from a series of tactical solutions. You learn valuable information like appointment volume peaks and valleys, and whether customers at one time tend to value a fast appointment versus others who come at a different time and are pleased when the customer service representative takes their time to build a more personalized experience. And you learn which step impacts customer satisfaction most, and what can be done to improve others.

Ultimately, a single, comprehensive, closed loop customer journey solution composed of online, mobile, kiosk, SMS, and digital tools, and data gathering capabilities at each touch point will generate information that can answer questions an organization may not have known to ask. It’s not possible to improve problems you can’t spot. It’s not possible to enhance benefits you aren’t aware that people value.

Customer experience success hinges on asking the right questions first, then building a solution that can answer those questions consistently and accurately. In my role as a patient, I experienced how valuable that is to those who are seeking service and those who are providing it. With a multi-point solution like Qmatic, organizations can uncover deeper, more perceptive information. You gain human-level awareness of the value your organization is providing.

As a patient and a professional committed to the value of great customer experiences, I can promise that Qmatic can help you to ask and answer the right questions.