🎙️ Today on Behind the Mic: Joining us is Priya Chakravarthy, VP-EXPERIENCE at BluSmart, for an insightful discussion.

With over 24 years of industry expertise, Priya has significantly impacted E-commerce, Telecommunications, DTH, Insurance, and Ride-Hailing sectors. Renowned for her strategic acumen and transformative vision, she has successfully implemented large ecosystems and spearheaded projects that have dramatically improved cost, revenue, and customer experience. Her extensive knowledge in Strategy Formulation, Customer Experience & Service Delivery, Operations, Digital Transformation, Business/Revenue, and People Leadership makes her an invaluable addition to our event.

We had the pleasure of asking Priya a few questions about her career and insights into the industry. Here are her thoughtful responses:

Q. What inspired you to pursue a career in customer experience, and how did you get started in this field?

My career started as a receptionist. Within 2 months I was moved to the customer service role.I was passionate about service customers , ensuring their issues get resolved. This sense of belonging, ownership and commitment to success started. Post which i was given a team to lead which inspired me to handle all critical escalation and solving them from root. Eventually I was launching customer service teams in multiple cities for the same organization. The passion to understand various dynamics , coordinate ,solve , enable and inspire began from there and there was no looking back.

Q. How do you incorporate cutting-edge technologies such as AI, machine learning, and blockchain into your product development process to enhance customer experience?

It’s a very methodical process which needs a 360 degree approach. The most important aspect is “what the customer wants”. Voice of customers will help understand and identify areas where cutting-edge technologies can improve the customer experience. This can be done by survey, dip checks ,AI-driven sentiment analysis tools, focus group etc. Aim at specific objectives to achieve by integrating AI, ML via personalisation , bringing in transparency and optimizing operations by improving efficiency. It is important further to choose the right technologies and integrate them into your existing systems.Hire the right skilled resources who know the integration mechanism (they are the makers /inventors ) Rigorous Development and testing protocols – via agile methods ,user interface testing , gather feedback to refine prototypes etc. Data management process to ensure risk is mitigated by using ML algorithms to analyze data and extract actionable insights. Prevention of sustainable risk and enabling long run solutions. Combat the same with measuring success , managing stakeholder feedback and redefining success parameters

Q. Can you share some of the biggest challenges you've faced in improving customer experience, particularly from a product management perspective, and how you overcame them?

Most of product management is always a transformation in nature. It is high intensity and needs to have a clear strategy around positioning it right.
Some challenges are listed below.
While it’s important to align customer requirements , it’s also equally important to align product value for customer needs. Ensuring that new features directly address customer pain points and add tangible value.The other challenge an organization faces is transparency and consistency across all channels or sources of communication.The other next challenge which I have seen or observed is balancing Innovation with Usability. Its critical for ROI Providing personalized experiences to a large and diverse customer base without losing efficiency.

Some recommendations

Innovation – adapt to market changes , keep a tab on the ongoing requirements, competitor analysis and voice of customer helps overcome this aspect.
Transparency related, Develop an omnichannel strategy and ensure all customer interactions are integrated and consistent. It can be integrated with CRM applications also Pesonalisation can be done via AI and machine learning to analyze customer data and deliver personalized recommendations and experiences at scale.

Q. Can you discuss a specific instance where you utilized data analytics to identify customer pain points and inform product enhancements?

Any key metric impacting customer experience can be plotted For example repeat customers. This is one of the metric when diagnosed in the right manner with data analytics will give exponential return on investment

What is the repeat % at customer level , Type of issue level.

Repeat on product level , country, state and pincode level

Leveraging this data and doing audits will bring about all the changes that will help reduce this nos. People , process and technology level which will have impact on cost, experience and revenue

Q. What strategies or practices have you found most effective in delivering exceptional customer experiences through your products and services?

The first and foremost strategy every organization at all levels needs to do is foster a culture where every employee understands the importance of customer experience (CX) and their role in delivering it. It’s a top down approach followed by each and every employee.
Customer personalisation , Omnichannel present is like a must and should in today’s experience. Tailor products and services to meet the individual needs of each customer.
Being proactive , sensible ,reliable and efficient customer service. Excellent SOP, tech solutions, automations , sustainable processes in place to make it intuitive.
The fourth important strategy – Sustainability and continuous improvement. Feedback mechanism is essential for close lopping and improving.

Q. What methodologies or frameworks do you employ to prioritize feature development and ensure alignment with customer needs and business objectives?

Prioritizing feature development to ensure alignment with customer needs and business objectives is crucial for effective product management. Several methodologies and frameworks can help achieve this, providing a structured approach to decision-making and prioritization

Some framework that has really worked from the past experiences

MoSCoW Method – this works effectively when you know all aspects and dimensions of Must-Have, Should-Have, Could-Have, and Won’t-Have. This method helps prioritize features based on their criticality
Kano Model – categorizes features based on customer satisfaction and their implementation impact. One need to conduct surveys to identify customer perceptions of features and further categorize features into Basic, Performance, and Excitement
Value vs. Effort Matrix – Helps visualize and prioritize features based on their value to the customer and the effort required to implement them. Helps understand highvalue_low effort , High value _High effort , lowvalue _low effort , Low value _high effort
Customer Journey Mapping – This is one model a lot of value stream organizations effective use across all Life cycle stage
OKRs -Objectives and Key Results – A common approach used in all organizations which are metric driven and believe in an output oriented approach.
Can you share a particularly memorable success story where your efforts in product management significantly improved customer satisfaction?

IVR tree implementation with API integration is one of the key success stories. A huge transformational project where we had to reduce the interactions / subscribers which ran into two lakh interactions / day.

Understanding all scenarios , creating workflow automations , Integration of API, Bring in personalisation , Output bases triggers , effective communication at every stage of event exposed to customers brought in clear traction on reduction of calls / interaction. Its was the biggest and most successful transformational project which not only increased Csat and experience , but improved revenue and reduced cost.

Q. How do you handle difficult customer interactions, and what have you learned from those experiences that have influenced your product management strategies?

Handling customers is an art. It’s more intense as you get more experience handling multiple customers . Every customer is different and has varied expectations whether you have a great product or service or not . Experience is a demanding and diversified role to engage, enable and evolve.I feel some skills are very important to handle customers by virtue of patience , adaptability , understanding the expectation and determining what the customer actually expects or needs and then managing the customer with due diligence. Transparency , reliability and Availability is or key significance

Conclusion

Our conversation with Priya Chakravarthy has been incredibly enlightening. Starting her career as a receptionist and quickly moving into customer service, Priya’s passion for resolving customer issues and leading teams has been evident. Her methodical approach to incorporating cutting-edge technologies like AI, machine learning, and blockchain into product development showcases her dedication to improving customer experience. Priya’s insights into using customer feedback, selecting the right technologies, and implementing rigorous development processes provide invaluable lessons for anyone looking to excel in this field.

Thank you for joining us on this edition of Behind the Mic. Stay tuned for more insightful discussions with industry leaders!