Predictions are what they are; a forecast, a statement about what will or might happen in the future.

In 2021, we foresaw CUSTOMER REACQUAINTANCE being the CX focus for businesses in Africa and from our interactions with new, existing and prospective clients at Niche Customer Experience Group as well as our interactions with business professionals in Africa, this prediction was spot on because more and more businesses were asking; what do customers want?

Background

At Niche Customer Experience Group, we received tons of requests for proposals from clients that just wanted to understand their customers a bit more and how best to serve them in a competitive market. No doubt our CX Discovery service was a best seller and most requested CX service in 2021 as we offered these services to leading businesses in the banking, retail, manufacturing, technology and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sectors. We also attended and participated in a number of CX events + engaged with business managers, business leaders and CEOs across Africa and while the aforementioned group have retained customer management or CX innovations instigated by the pandemic post the lock-down, there is still the question of value i.e. what is the quantifiable value of customer management or CX innovation to:

• The customer i.e. VALUE TO THE CUSTOMER 
• The employees i.e. VALUE TO THE EMPLOYEE 
• The business i.e. VALUE TO THE BUSINESS

The dynamics of customer experience as a business strategy in Africa is unique when you think about its population of 1.3+ billion people across 54 countries (source: worldometer) with 3000+ tribes (source: travel noire).

With the above in view, it’s evident that each business in each sector and in each country requires the integration of its culture, consumer behaviour, political climate, etc to understand how it can create an equilibrium between customer delight and business profitability for longevity.

Commendably, businesses in Africa improved accessibility to customers on the continent. The 2020 STATE OF CX IN WEST AFRICA report highlights with data how customers feel about this in Western Africa. Overall, innovations noted in Africa include:

• Increasing service channels and embracing social media and WhatsApp
• Designing and launching of mobile applications
• Automating some business processes
• Increasing function-specific human capital development
• In some cases, redesigning products & services to increase adoption and retention
• Increasing employee engagement 
• Improved brand message to demonstrate customer understanding and empathy
• Increased desire for business analytics to guide CX decision making howbeit missing critical data points observed 
• Reducing turnaround time (TAT) for some businesses/transactions

With all of the above in view which has happened in some sectors and businesses, there are an underlining question which business managers, leaders and owners cannot answer at the snap of the finger without describing a lineup of CX activities, initiatives, customer satisfaction or net promoter scores (NPS). That question is what is the value of all you have done to the CUSTOMERS, our EMPLOYEES and the BUSINESS from a profitability perspective?

2022 Customer Experience (CX) Prediction

2022 in our opinion is the YEAR FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE APPRAISAL. This should be the focus for businesses asking very vital questions like how has everything we have done so far to manage or improve our customers’ experience:

• increased the number of customer we have 
• reduced the cost of customer acquisition
• increased top of mind awareness with new, existing and prospective customers
• improved sales, customer support and operational efficiency while reducing the cost to serve?
• increased repeat patronage?
• increased share of customer wallet?
• increased referral reflecting in the number of new customers and reduction in cost per customer acquisition?

We foresee more businesses demanding a return on customer experience to understand:

• what has worked and why
• what has not worked and why
• what can be done to maximize wins or get a return on CX investments

We see businesses in Africa question the relevance of CX from a business analytics and performance perspective and failure to do this by CX professionals may lead to: 

• layoffs/replacements of these CX professionals
• requests for bespoke CX management capabilities boosting
• dissolution of CX teams
• businesses exploring other ways to practically manage customers to get the desired business results – if CX isn’t working, what will?

The businesses that will win in Africa in 2022 are the businesses that will take the time to appraise their end to end customer experience management operations to learn deeply and act on what to do and what not to do.

What Next?

So in 2022, how do you appraise the value of your investments in customer experience or the value of investing in improving customer experience in your organization? To guide you, we will be breaking down this prediction into bite-sizes daily, weekly and/or monthly to give a clearer picture of this prediction and how businesses in Africa can appraise CX operations as well as tweak their customer management strategy to achieve the desired profitability. 

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Have a good one.

deBBie akwara, CMC, XMP

Founder & CEO, Niche Customer Experience Group.