Key elements of good client experience

Simplicity, visibility and empowerment are three of the key elements of client experience.

Simplicity

Simplicity sits at the core. Clients call it "easy to do business with". Straight-through processing, frictionless processes, intuitive interfaces and real-time responses all rely on it. Simplicity forces an organization to focus on what is absolutely necessary to complete a client request, and to question everything else that adds little value but exists because of poor process design, audit requirements, or technology and talent limitations. It is perhaps the hardest element to achieve, because it means examining business practices, identifying clutter and envisioning a future state.

Visibility

Visibility maintains the trust built during the sales cycle and reinforces expectations. Visual tools that explain the process and give status updates keep clients engaged, and take the burden off your people of managing incoming calls and escalations.

Empowerment

Empowerment is about choice: giving clients different ways to interact with you, to authenticate, choose a product, provide data, set up billing and authorise. The industry buzzword is omni-channel. The true essence of empowerment is letting clients do what they want, when they want, without necessarily involving anyone. But empowerment relies heavily on simplicity: nothing frustrates a client more than starting something they can't finish because of poor system capabilities or process design.

Every industry has further elements. In financial services, protection of fiduciary responsibility and personal data is critical. But for commoditised, high-volume industries like brokerage, banking and insurance, a clear strategy for simplicity, visibility and empowerment will enhance client experience.