Samantha Conyers: Raising the bar on customer experience

Customer experience is a term we've all heard. We can all describe a time when we've had both good and bad experiences as a customer, and can remember the ways the experiences made us feel, but what exactly does it mean.

As a marketing concept, customer experience (CX) is not new in itself, but businesses are now beginning to put CX on the front burner of their strategies. In the Caribbean, CX has become more critical than ever as consumers are increasingly mindful of where they spend their incomes in an uncertain economic environment.

Customer experience is basically the impression a customer has of a brand as a whole throughout all aspects of their buyer's journey. It shapes their view of a brand and impacts factors related to a brand's bottom line including revenue.

While poor customer service remains a constant concern for most people, one firm, EXCO TT, The Customer Experience Company, led by the dynamic Samantha Conyers, is aiming to up-level the experience for local entities.

"I started in CX about 15 years ago when I had a small role at Goldman Sachs, London, on their client relations team. I actually spent most of my time there setting meetings and serving coffee but what I learned there stayed with me. That lesson was that great customer experiences don't just happen – there's a lot of background work that goes into creating the environment for that," Conyers, the company's chief experience officer, recalled.

"On returning to Trinidad, I had a role at Beacon Insurance as a customer relations representative. However, I asked the company to change my role to that of customer experience and to this day, I still spend a lot of time explaining what customer experience or CX is," she pointed out, "But it has become one of those organisational buzzwords today and interest is growing."

After finding her footing at Digicel and working with then chief operating officer Sacha Thompson to build the organisation's first customer experience division, which she headed, Conyers began thinking about taking the work they had done for the telecommunications group and applying it regionally to other companies.

"I went to my former boss Sacha Thompson, who was now the chairperson of the board for Digicel TT with this idea, and we were joined by Chelsea Costelloe who brought her experience in the digital marketing and consumer behaviour space onboard."

Together they founded EXCO TT, the women-executive-only company, with the aim of helping companies in the region create positive customer experiences driven by data and immersion with employees and customers. Thompson is a director and Costelloe is the chief excitement officer of the Woodbrook-based outfit. More recently they added a new employee, and fourth woman, customer experience executive Emily Laughlin.

The company had chosen to be hands-on – opting to be "high touch and low tech" – a strategy that was upended by covid19.

"We've actually received feedback from client's employees in the past that they thought we were fellow employees – for us this is a huge compliment as we really believe it is critical to embed ourselves into the business. A big part of our role and a critical success factor is that we understand the everyday experience that the business is delivering. So we take a deep dive into the operations and focus on data and processes to help us do that," Conyers told WMN.

"In our experience, it's very often a case of broken (or missing) systems and processes that need to be improved. We utilise all existing data, and strongly recommend the implementation of tools to capture and measure feedback, the insights garnered from this data is invaluable in telling your CX story," she explained.

"Customer journey maps take it a step further using a collaborative approach to engage and align your teams around the experiences they are all delivering and brainstorm what, together, they can and need to do differently. Recently, we have invested heavily in training, to strengthen our engagements and leverage new tools as we do more business virtually."

While many might regard changing employee culture and customer service in culture to be a daunting task, Conyers sees it differently.

"Firstly, I believe in employee experience over everything else, so we start there. When you come across a rude employee, it's very likely that employee is having a hard time delivering quality service. Maybe they are struggling in their role because the people in the back haven't empowered them to do their job – but yes there are difficult employees too – that's different."

Conyers noted that more often than not, companies aren't spending enough time investing in proper processes that can create positive customer experiences.

While the task of administration and running EXCO demands most of her time, Conyers is also the mother of two.

"I've been married for seven years, and I keep saying recently married, so that must be a good thing," she added with a laugh.

"My son, Eli, is five, a real sweet and sensitive boy and my daughter, Lyla is three – she's a bit of a rebel. Having my own business means that I get to enjoy having more control over what my calendar and days look like, even if it means 5 am calls to be free at 5 pm. It can be tough as my husband and I both work extremely hard and like most parents today have to balance that when we get home with other demands. My biggest struggle right now is trying to balance being a good mom, a friend and a teacher at 'remote school' for my kids and delivering on the promises of EXCO to our own clients, and of course growing the business!

"I am fortunate I have the dependability of a great team and support system, both at work and at home. My best advice to any business person is to set up a reliable support system, especially if you have a family, it really does take a village, and I am so grateful for mine," she pointed out.

Another team she is proud to be part of is The Rebecca Ann Foundation, started in honour of their late friend Rebecca Farah Collier, also a mother and advocate for children. Conyers currently sits as chairperson. Recently the foundation donated over 30 devices to schools across the country, including Kelly Village and Mt D'or, and are in the process of donating over 2,000 storybooks to children in collaboration with the Let's Read and Syrian Lebanese Women's Association foundations with the intention of uplifting, motivating and inspiring.

While Conyers, who first began her studies in economics, never intended to immerse herself in the world of customer experience, her choice was prescient as it has become a critical and in-demand service. EXCO has affiliations with global partners; OCX Cognition based in the US and AJUA Inc based in Nairobi, Kenya, where Conyers also acts as customer experience adviser for their large Africa-based clients. These partnerships form a big part of their operations and will form part of their virtual event on October 6 to observe World CX Day.

In the interim, Conyers strongly advises companies to shift out of the "wait and see" mindset and start doing what they can.

"There is so much fantastic and ready information online that can help you and your team get started on creating great customer experiences. If I could pick one thing to say start doing now, I would say start gathering feedback, start listening to the voice of your customers!"

You can sign up for the Caribbean CX Meet & Greet at www.excott.com/cxday