Ep. 40 Customer Experience Trends in Silicon Valley

Providing Customer Experience Solutions Tailored to Business Needs

This week’s guest is Kristen Kuyatt, Ph.D., vice president of business development at iQor. Kristen represents iQor in the western United States, specifically in the Silicon Valley area of California. She has more than 15 years of experience in the BPO industry and a doctorate in global leadership with an emphasis on emotional intelligence in employee and client engagement. She layers this knowledge into all of her client engagement opportunities. In this episode, we learn the recent trends Kristen is seeing in outsourced customer experience management and digital transformation among the leading brands that she works within Silicon Valley.

The Top Three CX Trends in Silicon Valley

Work-at-Home: A big trend Kristen has experienced among Silicon Valley companies interested in outsourced customer service since the start of the pandemic is the increase in work-at-home (WAH) solutions. As a leader in outsourced CX services, the early days of COVID-19 necessitated iQor to quickly and securely adapt. iQor transitioned more than 20,000 employees from work-in-office to work-at-home environments when quarantines were mandated in certain geos. WAH solutions allow the onsite experience to be easily mirrored at the agent’s home, while boosting agent retention and customer loyalty. With robust end-point security protection, happy, skilled customer support experts scaled easily and securely to WAH environments so customers kept receiving the same great level of service.

Compliance: Within the tech and healthcare industries, compliance is a hot topic right now. iQor works closely with clients to ensure compliance in all areas, from secure customer data management to training agents in complex issues. Additionally, iQor works closely with government agencies in geos such as the Philippines and Trinidad and Tobago to ensure that our outsourced CX services comply with their mandates, including but not limited to COVID-19 directives.

Omnichannel Support: Clients are on a digital transformation journey that includes the need to offer omnichannel support to their customers as part of strategic digital CX solutions. The customer experience needs to include personalized and seamless interactions through a variety of channels such as email, chat, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered bots, SMS and more that align with customer needs. The solutions must resonate with clients and support customer engagement from all demographics, especially the tech- and social media-savvy younger groups.

The Evolution of the Outsourced Customer Experience Buying Process

In recent years, many businesses have revisited their customer experience solutions and this is evident throughout the evolution of the outsourced customer experience buying process in Silicon Valley.

Kristen notes that smaller companies tend to seek all-inclusive solutions that include an expansive committee of experts from marketing, technology, engineering, legal, and operations. Decision-makers are looking for innovation in all of these elements throughout their outsourced CX experience when working with business process outsourcing (BPO) partners like iQor.

There’s a focus on technology-enabled digital solutions that meet compliance requirements and create happy customer experiences. Businesses and their BPO partners are asking, how do we address emotion throughout the customer journey? How do we master the complexity of creating experiences that make people smile and bring moments of delight? The answers to these questions stem from an integration between customer service experience, emotional intelligence, and harnessing technology in meaningful ways.

iQor has some of the most amazing thought leaders and subject matter experts (SMEs) to strike this balance. They are able to talk tech and provide insight while also adding empathy and personality to create unique customer experience solutions personalized for each client to meet their CX needs.

The Role of Business Development for the Modern Outsourced CX Buyer

The modern outsourced customer experience buyer seeks trusted relationships with their BPO partner. Kristen has cultivated these types of relationships for years.

With a doctorate in global leadership, Kristen has been empowered in business development across all industries, but particularly with clients in the healthcare and technology industries. Clients value Kristen’s knowledge in CX and how she uses her expertise to best address their needs. Meeting clients where they’re at and offering a sort of concierge approach to their business engagements, builds connections and enables clients to speak their industry language comfortably with Kristen.

These experiences have offered Kristen enriching opportunities in her business development role as well as with the relationships she builds with SMEs at iQor. In turn, these trusted relationships facilitate connections between the SMEs and clients to enable open communication and information sharing to develop the custom CX solutions that address their specific needs.

Building trusted and loyal relationships is key with the modern buying committee in CX. Knowing the people and truly understanding client and customer needs creates myriad business engagement opportunities. These digital customer experience solutions range from personalized data and speech analytics to chat and email, and are developed in concert with clients’ needs and expectations. Kristen works with iQor SMEs to provide clients the information they need to make informed decisions.

When developing cost-effective CX solutions within a variety of budgets, trust between the client and BPO business development partner is essential. iQor’s experts see things through the eyes of the end customer and communicate directly with the client to articulate how their customers feel; this resonates with clients and creates new opportunities for growth and success.

Women in CX

Over the past five to seven years, Silicon Valley has seen an evolution of more women in leadership roles within the customer service career path, from boards of directors to executive teams.

Traditionally, roughly 80% of the demographic in Silicon Valley was male. There’s been a shift, however, and today Kristen sees women making up about 50% of the demographic in Silicon Valley. The inclusion of more women in tech has driven client engagement in customer service outsourcing and has contributed to more women excelling in leadership roles.

This shift, in turn, has led to more exciting business opportunities overall for women, which translates to more rewarding experiences throughout all levels of CX work environments as well as with the clients and customers served.

In the spirit of Women’s History Month and the essential role of computer science and digital technology in the customer experience, we celebrate the first computer programmer. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was an English mathematician and writer, best known for her work on a proposed mechanical general-purpose computer known at the time as the “analytical engine.” She was the first to recognize that the machine had applications beyond pure calculations and she published the first algorithm to be carried out by the machine. Consequently, she’s often regarded as the first computer programmer. Her innovations set the stage for the many analytical and soft skills women bring to CX throughout Silicon Valley and beyond.

What Kristen Does for Fun

Kristen is always up for anything active. In her free time, she enjoys making the most of all that sunny California has to offer. She relishes her time spent skiing, running, jumping, and traveling during any season.

Learn more about iQor’s digital customer experience capabilities.