Do not index
Do not index
Poor customer service is costing companies $75 billion a year. That’s according to a 2018 report by NewVoiceMedia, which estimates those losses are up $13 billion since its last report in 2016.
Why are companies losing out on so much revenue opportunity? How do we solve the problem and help companies reach their full revenue potential?
These are questions my co-founder, Scott McCabe, and I grappled with as we brainstormed how to help companies and their customers get amazing value from each other and for longer periods of time.
When we looked at the CX market, we saw a lot of great companies solving important CX problems and opportunities—but we didn’t see many attempting to completely leverage CX to maximize lifetime customer value and revenue.
To fill this gap, we founded Officium Labs. Our goal is to help companies regain the $75 billion a year they are losing and, in the process, upgrade the customer experience across the globe by 2030.
Focus on the Gaming and Entertainment Industry
To avoid the boil-the-ocean approach to solving important customer problems, we decided to focus on a specific vertical that we are passionate about and believe has amazing growth potential: video games and entertainment.
As the graphics below illustrates, an estimated 2.3 billion people play video games worldwide, creating a global gaming market of $148.8 billion. No wonder game creators want to keep players playing their games.
And these numbers are expected to double over the next 10 to 20 years. What an awesome opportunity to help billions of people better enjoy gaming and entertainment experiences every day.
In short, the overall video games and entertainment market is larger than the GDP of some states and many countries. Soon, the same number of people will be playing games as use popular apps like WhatApp, Snapchat, and Instagram. And mobile gaming is exploding on the gaming scene with a vengeance. Already the largest segment of the gaming market, mobile game revenues are projected to surpass $95 billion in 2022.
But with all of this growth, many gaming companies are failing their customers, and it’s important to understand why.
Today’s Gaming Industry: What’s Broken in Customer Service and Experience
To better understand the challenges customers are facing today in gaming and entertainment, I wrote a business case from a recent company I worked for in Freemium gaming. Here is a snapshot of the outdated mindsets we found in our benchmarking—mindsets that are leading gaming and entertainment companies to fail their customers and players and lose out on their $75 billion:
- Support is a necessary cost. Let’s try to minimize it. After all, we don’t need complainers in our game.
- Let’s deflect all of our players to the knowledge base and hope they get their answers.
- We had a longer response time on console, so it will work for mobile. All players are the same.
- I don’t need gamers to answer support questions. Anyone can do it with training.
- I don’t need to invest in tech for support and community. The service experience is not a priority.
- I don’t need to understand my players. All players are the same.
- People love our game. It doesn’t matter if we engage them. It is so amazing that they will keep coming.
- I can’t impact or influence players through CX.
Video games and entertainment are a microcosm of the problems that are driving $75 billion of loss for companies in customer value. These outdated attitudes are not unique to this vertical; companies in every industry are slow to invest and quick to keep the status quo running.
Blake Morgan’s recent Forbes article, “ The Evolution of Customer Service” outlines this in great detail. Here is a snapshot of the then-and-now of CX she shared in her article:
The Future = creating and delivering amazing experiences for our customers. The Past = losing $75 billion dollars.
Our experience is that companies that invest $1M in CX get a $3-4M return. Companies that don’t invest in CX see their players leaving to go play other games or entertainment choices.
How We Created Officium—and Why Now Is the Time for this Idea
My co-founder, Scott, and I came up with the idea for Officium over several walks around San Francisco in the spring of 2019. As we walked, we talked about the enormous opportunity to use CX to help companies—especially the gaming companies we know so well—maximize their revenue. We discussed the vast network of CX resources and capabilities that are currently untapped and hampered by traditional CX resourcing models. We recognized that it was time for a new, innovative CX model to help companies protect or generate value. It was time for a break with the past.
We envisioned a future mesh-network CX marketplace that drove value by connecting networked demand nodes (clients) directly with the best fitting networked supply nodes (be they technology providers, BPOs, or individuals), while giving the supply nodes the means to compete with each other on both price and merit. We decided to create Officium Labs to build this much-needed CX marketplace.
We knew that once we connected supply nodes into a network in an efficient way, we could add demand nodes to the network. It will take some work to create these connections; however, once the connections are made and connection value is demonstrated, we envision a mass network effect opportunity that can be managed through a CX marketplace—not too dissimilar from the network effects in Uber, Bitcoin, Amazon, and other marketplace and network-based companies.
What makes this idea possible at this time in history are three key transformations currently in progress:
- Transformation 1 is happening in the workplace. Transformation 2 is happening in the payments industry. I discuss these two trends in more detail in my recent blog post: “Gig Economy, A Lightbulb Moment for the CX Industry.” In short, the emergence of the gig economy is changing how and where people work, and the development of virtual currencies is changing the way people are paid for that work.
- Transformation 3 is a mindset transformation happening with customers, who now expect far more from companies who wish to keep their business. Here, I describe a gaming example of the customer expectations transformation.
Where Officium Labs Stands Today
Over the past months, we have been focused on proving out our concept by leveraging these transformations and also by manually creating the CX supply and demand nodes discussed above, while creating a commercial model that supports our beta CX marketplace. As it stands, we have 10,000 marketplace workers and five strategic partners that are powering best-in-class CX transformation work for our six clients, which range from small to Top 10 gaming companies worldwide.
In 2020, we have an enormous opportunity to finalize the manual work of network creation and connection and then to start building product solutions that will enable our CX marketplace to manage the CX network and eventually start to realize network effects. These effects will bring enormous value to forward-thinking gaming and entertainment companies that love their players and customers.
We see the CX marketplace and the network that powers it as our engine, and we see transformations in workforce, payment, and customer expectations as our enablers. These enablers are not our true purpose or why we exist, they merely increase the capability for us to help companies protect and grow their $75 billion.
We are here to make a difference, disrupt, and revolutionize how customers and players are supported worldwide.
Officium’s Mission, Vision, and Values
Mission: To improve people's lives with the world's best gaming and entertainment customer experiences
Vision: We enable companies to leverage CX to maximize customer value and revenue
Scott and I believe that creating and growing the CX marketplace will provide four key benefits:
- An avenue for skilled CX workers around the globe to maximize their value
- A way for companies that want to be best in class to tap into and leverage vetted and qualified CX workers
- Enormous customer value and revenue for companies
- The ability for CX workers to be paid in ways commensurate with next gen payment methods (i.e., crypto, virtual)
When it comes to CX, many companies are investing in AI and tech rather than their human workforce. We believe the future of CX requires innovative solutions for both AI and human workers, with AI and tech driving down costs and helping companies manage repetitive tasks while well-trained, empathetic human workers drive brand loyalty, becoming key differentiators who help companies retain and gain new customers.
We believe the skilled and flexible workers in our CX marketplace will change and disrupt the $350B+ CX industry, and we also believe that those workers should benefit from their participation in the marketplace. As we build and grow our marketplace, we commit to making socially conscious decisions to ensure it delivers immense value to both the demand and supply network nodes.
We have an enormous opportunity to capitalize on this moment and become the gold standard in supplying CX workers to companies who sorely need them. We will be able to help companies maximize value and revenue through CX. And more importantly, we can improve people's lives with the world's best gaming and entertainment customer experiences.
If you are interested in learning how we can help you protect and grow your $75 billion in customer value and revenue through our CX marketplace, we are here to help!
Written by
.jpeg&optimizer=image&quality=80&width=280)