Innovation. Preparing for the future customers satisfactions

Innovation. Preparing for the future customers satisfactions.

Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services.[1] ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 [2] defines innovation as "a new or changed entity realizing or redistributing value". Others have different definitions; a common element in the definitions is a focus on newness, improvement, and spread of ideas or technologies.

Innovation often takes place through the development of more-effective products, processes, services, technologies, art works[3] or business models that innovators make available to markets, governments and society. Innovation is related to, but not the same as, invention:[4] innovation is more apt to involve the practical implementation of an invention (i.e. new / improved ability) to make a meaningful impact in a market or society,[5] and not all innovations require a new invention.[6]

Technical innovation often manifests itself via the engineering process when the problem being solved is of a technical or scientific nature. The opposite of innovation is exnovation.
Surveys of the literature on innovation have found a variety of definitions. In 2009, Baregheh et al. found around 60 definitions in different scientific papers, while a 2014 survey found over 40.[7] Based on their survey, Baragheh et al. attempted to define a multidisciplinary definition and arrived at the following definition:

"Innovation is the multi-stage process whereby organizations transform ideas into new/improved products, service or processes, in order to advance, compete and differentiate themselves successfully in their marketplace"[8]

In an industrial survey of how the software industry defined innovation, the following definition given by Crossan and Apaydin was considered to be the most complete, which builds on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) manual's definition:[7]
Innovation is production or adoption, assimilation, and exploitation of a value-added novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and enlargement of products, services, and markets; development of new methods of production; and the establishment of new management systems. It is both a process and an outcome.
American sociologist Everett Rogers, defined it as follows:

"An idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption"[9]

According to Alan Altshuler and Robert D. Behn, innovation includes original invention and creative use and defines innovation as a generation, admission and realization of new ideas, products, services and processes.[10]

Two main dimensions of innovation are degree of novelty (i.e. whether an innovation is new to the firm, new to the market, new to the industry, or new to the world) and kind of innovation (i.e. whether it is process or product-service system innovation).[7] In organizational scholarship, researchers have also distinguished innovation to be separate from creativity, by providing an updated definition of these two related constructs:

Workplace creativity concerns the cognitive and behavioral processes applied when attempting to generate novel ideas. Workplace innovation concerns the processes applied when attempting to implement new ideas. Specifically, innovation involves some combination of problem/opportunity identification, the introduction, adoption or modification of new ideas germane to organizational needs, the promotion of these ideas, and the practical implementation of these ideas
Creativity and innovation
In general, innovation is distinguished from creativity by its emphasis on the implementation of creative ideas in an economic setting. Amabile and Pratt in 2016, drawing on the literature, distinguish between creativity ("the production of novel and useful ideas by an individual or small group of individuals working together") and innovation ("the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization").
Four types innovation model
Another framework was suggested by Henderson and Clark. They divide innovation into four types;

Radical innovation: "establishes a new dominant design and, hence, a new set of core design concepts embodied in components that are linked together in a new architecture." (p. 11)[21]

Incremental innovation: "refines and extends an established design. Improvement occurs in individual components, but the underlying core design concepts, and the links between them, remain the same." (p. 11)[21]
Architectural innovation: "innovation that changes only the relationships between them [the core design concepts]" (p. 12)[21]
Modular Innovation: "innovation that changes only the core design concepts of a technology"
Process of innovation
An early model included only three phases of innovation. According to Utterback (1971), these phases were: 1) idea generation, 2) problem solving, and 3) implementation.[38] By the time one completed phase 2, one had an invention, but until one got it to the point of having an economic impact, one didn't have an innovation. Diffusion wasn't considered a phase of innovation. Focus at this point in time was on manufacturing.

All organizations can innovate, including for example hospitals, universities, and local governments.[39] The organization requires a proper structure in order to retain competitive advantage. Organizations can also improve profits and performance by providing work groups opportunities and resources to innovate, in addition to employee's core job tasks.[40] Executives and managers have been advised to break away from traditional ways of thinking and use change to their advantage.[41] The world of work is changing with the increased use of technology and companies are becoming increasingly competitive. Companies will have to downsize or reengineer their operations to remain competitive. This will affect employment as businesses will be forced to reduce the number of people employed while accomplishing the same amount of work if not more.[42]

For instance, former Mayor Martin O’Malley pushed the City of Baltimore to use CitiStat, a performance-measurement data and management system that allows city officials to maintain statistics on several areas from crime trends to the conditions of potholes. This system aided in better evaluation of policies and procedures with accountability and efficiency in terms of time and money. In its first year, CitiStat saved the city $13.2 million.[43] Even mass transit systems have innovated with hybrid bus fleets to real-time tracking at bus stands. In addition, the growing use of mobile data terminals in vehicles, that serve as communication hubs between vehicles and a control center, automatically send data on location, passenger counts, engine performance, mileage and other information. This tool helps to deliver and manage transportation systems.[44]

Still other innovative strategies include hospitals digitizing medical information in electronic medical records. For example, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's HOPE VI initiatives turned severely distressed public housing in urban areas into revitalized, mixed-income environments; the Harlem Children’s Zone used a community-based approach to educate local area children; and the Environmental Protection Agency's brownfield grants facilitates turning over brownfields for environmental protection, green spaces, community and commercial development.

By
Robin Gareiss, Metrigy Research
Published: 24 Nov 2021
The future of customer service increasingly will be driven by technology innovations. Ideally, these new technologies will improve customer and agent experiences, along with business metrics like revenue, operational costs and customer ratings. But businesses often miss the mark when they try to move too quickly with too much technology, ultimately resulting in consumer dissatisfaction rather than elation.

Customer expectations for what defines a good experience stay fairly consistent over time, but the approach to providing that experience changes. Meanwhile, advanced technologies, largely driven by artificial intelligence, analytics and automation, arm companies with new techniques for driving

customer satisfaction and loyalty.

How are customer expectations changing?
Over the years, customer expectations generally haven't changed. Customers want to be served quickly and completely on the first try. If they're speaking to a human agent, they want a friendly, knowledgeable interaction -- the goal being to resolve the customer's problem or answer their question quickly and easily.

Drilling down, however, customer expectations are influenced by the changes in technology. Just five years ago, for example, few customers would have expected to communicate with businesses over SMS or messaging services from their mobile phone. Now, it's common because consumers use those applications in other areas of their lives.

This article is part of
Perhaps the biggest area of change is the interaction channels used to communicate with businesses. Today, 58% of customers interact with digital channels, and 50% of all transactions start digitally, according to Metrigy's research. Consumers now expect to have several options for communication, including messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WeChat, WhatsApp and Apple Business Chat, along with web chat, SMS, screen-sharing, video, self-service knowledge bases and FAQs, and chatbots.

Consumers also are more open to proactive outreach -- whether the customer service team is inviting them to a customer loyalty program or reminding them of an appointment -- so long as those reminders, confirmations and invitations arrive at their preferred application.

How is technology influencing the future of customer service?
Businesses can provide quick, contextual customer service with tools like analytics, agent assist and workforce optimization (WFO) for agents in the contact center, as well as customer-facing tools such as self-service, chatbots and personalization.

At the core of most new technologies are the three As -- artificial intelligence, automation and analytics. Working together, these technologies can provide organizations with advice, context, results and metrics for improvement, but it's imperative to roll out deployments cautiously instead of trying to boil the ocean. Businesses will then be able to identify how well these customer service tools address specific problems or opportunities and evaluate their performance through analytics.

Technology should improve customer service, customer experiences and agent satisfaction and continue to raise the bar for meeting customer expectations.

12 trends that are changing the future of customer service

Several customer service trends are changing future interactions and expectations.

1. Hybrid workplaces

Planned by 71% of companies, hybrid workplaces will increase the availability of agents, allowing companies to better respond to emergency or high-volume situations. If a weather issue is causing flight delays, for example, airlines can more easily call in agents off-hours because they can work from their home office instead of commuting to the contact center.

2. Chief customer officers

By the end of 2021, nearly 75% of companies had planned to have a chief customer officer on board. CCOs raise the visibility of customer experience to C-suite executives. They also conduct agent and voice-of-the-customer analysis to regularly evaluate and revise technology implementations.

3. Higher wages for agents, less turnover

In 2022, 44% of companies will increase agent pay. Chatbots and virtual assistants are replacing the functions of basic or entry-level agents. Agents are now required to be more experienced. Average pay ranges from $21.64 to $42.31 per hour. Higher pay, along with flexible work schedules, will help reduce agent turnover rates.

4. More virtual assistants and video

Virtual assistants and video are the two fastest-growing customer interaction channels. Virtual assistants help customers navigate websites and self-service portals, while video helps agents see what customers are doing and resolve their issues. As companies continue to add video, customer service will improve.

5. Workforce optimization

WFO is on the rise. In the past year, 55% of companies have added more WFO applications. Quality management, call/screen recording and performance management top the deployment list. WFO analytics tools help improve agent performance and, ultimately, customer service.