Pay-TV channel MultiChoice is ticking the right digital boxes in delivering improved customer experience and outshining its global peers.
This is according to Roland Naidoo, MultiChoice Group executive head: customer experience and operations, who delivered a keynote address at the ITWeb CX Summit 2022 yesterday.
The one-day event explored pragmatic case studies from organisations that have effectively implemented digital customer experience strategies.
Customer experience management has, in recent years, become the bullseye for many brands, as they seek to build and maintain their customer base for long-term success, especially after the outbreak of COVID-19.
The pandemic caused a massive shift to online shopping, and brands are increasingly adopting tech solutions to interact with customers.
For MultiChoice, speaking to ITWeb on the sidelines of the summit, Naidoo says the company is now “fully focused on the customer” as it transitions from a “product-led to customer-led business”.
The pay-TV operator has, in recent months, been scaling up its digital customer engagement solutions, as it seeks to move customers away from analogue processes.
MultiChoice’s latest Integrated Report notes the company’s tech investments in improving customer experience, saying it reached a 75% digital adoption rate for its critical customer engagement fields in fiscal year 2022.
Naidoo tells ITWeb: “What I can say is that the focus is fully on the customer. The ways of work have shifted. Everything starts with the customer, from the way we design, the way we architect our business, to the way we train our people.
“You will start to see that in our product sets, the way we speak to customers, design things, even the look and feel of the business. It has been a long journey but transforming a business from product-led to customer-led is not easy. I think we are getting there.
“To be honest, I think we are better compared to our global peers. MultiChoice alone has one of the highest trained customer experience teams globally.”
While Naidoo credits emerging digital solutions for assisting the pay-TV company’s journey, he cautions that the way customer experience is delivered will outweigh technology.
He explains: “I don’t think we can ignore emerging tech, but like I explained in my keynote, technology is not the answer, it’s the way you treat your customers.
“From a streaming perspective, it impacted us significantly with Netflix, Amazon and all these guys, but ultimately the way we deliver experiences is going to trump technology.”
Embracing digital change
Delegates attending the summit also heard from Yugeshree Frylinck, founder of the CX Group, who spoke on how customer experience professionals can adjust and adapt to the accelerated rate of digital disruption.
In her speech, Frylinck explained how businesses are now operating in “unprecedented times” where the landscape and the needs of the consumer are constantly changing.
This, she told the participants, spells change in which customer experience is viewed and conducted.
Frylinck also explored the importance of digital transformation and its impact on customer experience.
“The key to success of digital transformation is to have a successful customer experience management framework within your organisation that is working.
“The difficulty every business has at this moment is that they need to customise and personalise for each and every one of us. No two customers are the same. That is why customer experience is going to be the answer.”
Looking ahead on trends, Frylinck cautioned local retailers to up their ante in the online shopping space, as they are facing off with global rivals that have invested significantly in customer experience.
“Retail has to up its game from where it is now because it’s a global village. I shop where I want to, I pick items from the US, I pick items from the UK, or wherever I want to. They taught me how to be treated from an online perspective.
“When I come in to buy something from a local retail store, I want the same experience. So, retailers are going to have to shift gear significantly to still retain the South African consumer.”
Quadri Olaitan is a journalist and contributor to Freelanews.com, covering news, public affairs, and human-interest stories.
