A lot of customer experiences hinge on your contact center’s effectiveness, which is why it’s important to ensure it’s a resource your customers find helpful, professional, and expedient.
However, building an effective, consistent contact center experiences can be overwhelming. That’s why we’ve taken everything we have learned by working with best-in-class brands and distilled those learnings into five simple steps you can follow to make sure you build a contact center that works for you, and works for your customers.
Utilize Automation
Explore Customer Issues to Create Self-Serve Content
Engage and Enable Employees
Data Is a Gold Mine
Closing the Loop
Improve Contact Center Experience Step #1: Utilize Automation
The term ‘automation’ can scare customers because they often associate it with navigating phone trees and having to repeat themselves to a robot listener, but the truth is that automation is incredibly useful when contact centers leverage it correctly. Using automation within online chats, online reviews, or survey feedback, for example, allows your brand to direct customers to solutions for smaller problems. This frees your call center agents up to deal with more complicated problems while also reducing call volumes, saving your brand both time and money.
Improve Contact Center Experience Step #2: Explore Customer Issues to Create Self-Serve Content
Utilizing customer feedback to guide them toward solutions is a valuable practice, but it’s only one part of the equation. This feedback becomes even more valuable when you can harness a data platform that utilizes unstructured data analytics and creates actionable insights. This approach proves incredibly beneficial for identifying recurring issues faced by your customers, escalating these concerns to your development team, and creating relevant self-service resources to empower customers in resolving problems independently. Also, it also serves as a proactive strategy for safeguarding your customer experience, addressing potential issues before they even arise.
Improve Contact Center Experience Step #3: Engage and Enable Employees
While it’s not uncommon for brands to provide training for their employees in customer interactions, organizations can unlock even greater potential by actively encouraging their staff to share their unique perspectives on customer problems. This approach not only equips brands with insights into issues that customers might not have formally reported but also empowers employees to proactively drive Experience Improvement (XI) initiatives. By fostering a culture of open communication, brands can tap into the collective expertise of their workforce and gain a deeper understanding of customer pain points, leading to more effective solutions.
This collaborative approach also sends a powerful message to contact center employees, demonstrating that the organization values their input and is genuinely committed to using an integrated CX approach to improve customer experience. By turning employees from mere service providers into valued contributors to the customer-centric mission, brands can effectively transform detractors into enthusiastic promoters. In doing so, they not only improve customer satisfaction but also cultivate a great employee experience that is also an engaged workforce dedicated to delivering exceptional service.
Improve Contact Center Experience Step #4: Data Is a Gold Mine
Your brand generates mountains of data every day. Having a lot of information is great, but in this day and age, having so much of it can make figuring out where to start difficult. We’ve found that contact center improvement hinges on three kinds of data: customer feedback, social media data, and web analytics. You can complete the puzzle of Experience Improvement by using this information as a foundation for unlocking your organization’s voice of the customer (VoC). Having all of this data in one place gives your brand a united, holistic perception of the customer, which is vital to knowing how you might make some fixes and refinements to your contact center.
Improve Contact Center Experience Step #5: Closing the Loop
The value of closing the loop cannot be stressed enough. It’s not actually enough to stop at solving the problem; following up with your customers afterward goes a long way toward making them feel cared about as people. In other words, a follow-up lets customers know you’re as interested in the relationship they have with your brand as the transaction. Follow up with employees, too! Not sure where to start? Check out this resource that outlines the 7 steps for implementing a closed loop system!
Gathering intel and opinions from all these folks will give you chances to improve both your contact center and your overall customer experience, strengthening human connections and your bottom line.
Click here to learn even more about these processes in our full-length contact center eBook. We take a deep dive into additional methods and best practices you can leverage to begin improving your contact center, customer experience, and employee experiences today!
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Today, there are a lot of customer feedback management (CFM) companies talking about integrated CX. Integrated CX isn’t a new concept by any means, and Pearl-Plaza is not so bold as to say we invented the concept. But, we are confident in saying that the strategies we are developing that view the customer experience as the sum of integrated feedback, insights, and actions are going to distinguish us from our competitors in a significant way.
What is Integrated CX?
Before we dive in, I feel that a quick definition of integrated CX—from our perspective—is a good place to start. We think of integrated CX as the process of creating an omnichannel customer experience through three key steps: capturing integrated signals, creating integrated insights, and taking integrated actions.
The idea behind integrated CX is to improve customer experience by combining large amounts of data with technology and services to create more complete customer insights and, as a result, more focused and measurable actions.
Now that we have done a bit of definition, how can you take this integrated CX approach and put it into action at your company? And, even more importantly, how can you do it so that you get financial proof points, such as proving the ROI of customer experience, from the efforts?
Moving from “What” to “Why”
I still have far too many discussions with clients and prospects who ask me what their net promoter score (NPS) goal should be or what does a blip in their customer satisfaction score (CSAT) mean to their business. I have to put on my best poker face (which I do not have!) and thoughtfully help them think differently. When businesses solely focus on the ‘what’ of customer experience data—such as numerical ratings and surface-level feedback—it sets them up for many unproductive discussions and mathematical scrambling to appease an analytical audience. Don’t get me wrong, metrics matter, but solely focusing on score management can lead to program stagnation. CX programs centered solely on the ‘what’ will struggle to drive tangible financial value.
I like to be like the newspaper reporter who continually asks ‘why.” Shifting to why will drive your team to delve deeper into customer feedback. It will also lead to you looking at multiple data sets—the first pillar of integrated CX—to better inform your customer behavior and sentiment.
It’s in this quest for the ‘why’ that businesses uncover hidden connections between CX improvements and financial business outcomes like customer acquisition, retention, and cost savings. In essence, the shift from ‘what’ to ‘why’ is the catalyst that propels CX programs toward achieving not only customer satisfaction but also a robust bottom line.
Using Data to Capture Insights
Another theme I hear from clients and prospects is that they have more data than they know what to do with or how to get insights from it (pillar #2 from integrated CX). I suggest taking a methodical approach with a dash of curiosity. The numbers can point you in the right direction. Integrating multiple data sources—qualitatively—can be harnessed to craft compelling narratives that reveal the deeper truths. You have to get beyond generic summaries and really dig into the specifics—understanding not just what happened, but why it matters.
While advanced CX platforms can provide valuable tools to get you started – or even most of the way to your answer – relying solely on automated solutions to ‘spit out’ answers is a shortcut to missed opportunities or superficial learnings. Human insight, analysis, and creativity remain indispensable. It’s the human touch that can weave data points into meaningful stories, connecting the dots between customer feedback and actionable strategies.
By being methodical, specific, and human-centric in your data analysis, you can create stories and action plans that are prescriptive and that can rally your organization to truly drive transformational changes to your customer experience.
Taking Actions That Can Be Owned and Measured
Gathering data and creating stories and specific plans to drive change can, unfortunately, be the easy part of driving integrated CX. Successful programs get measured by the actions taken and the business value realized – it is a harsh truth of the CX landscape.
To do this, organizations must foster buy-in and ownership at all levels of the company, starting with C-Suite endorsement and support and all the way down to the front line teams that deliver for customers and all the support staff in between.
The cliche is true – everyone owns CX. Once you have gathered data and created insights, the actions you take should not be arbitrary. Programs and initiatives should be tied to a well-defined hypothesis or a specific business driver.
It’s essential to recognize that not every action taken as a result of your program needs to be a grand slam; incremental wins are valuable steps in the right direction. CX is a game of momentum and continuous transformation. Another true cliche is that CX program success is a marathon and not a sprint.(For those of you who know me, you know I can’t resist a running analogy.) However, your initiatives should all be measured with a financial lens to enable you to track your return on investment. And – spoiler alert – all these successful actions will make customers happier and raise your scores. This is the validation from your customers that you have achieved integrated CX!
Building Your Integrated CX Program
Ready to transform your business with integrated CX? Take the first step towards boosting profitability and customer satisfaction by downloading our FREE ‘101-level’ guide today! You can access the guide here.
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With so much riding on each interaction with your brand, you can’t afford to leave a negative customer experience unresolved. Research shows that it takes about 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience. In fact, a study by Lee Resources reveals that 91% of unhappy customers won’t return to your brand at all. That’s where a closed-loop system comes in!
What Is a Closed-Loop System?
A closed-loop system is “the ability to identify and resolve individual customer issues and larger organizational patterns and trends based on those issues while communicating solutions back to customers and employees,” as defined by Bain & Company in “The Ultimate Question 2.0.”
This system consists of an inner loop, the ability to identify and resolve individual customer issues while communicating solutions back to customers and employees, and the outer loop, the ability to identify and resolve larger organizational patterns and trends based on individual customer issues while communicating solutions back to customers and employees.
Why Is a Closed-Loop System Important?
And though closed-loop systems have been around for a while now, they are still just as vital to your customer experience (CX) program! Here are just a few reasons why:
A closed-loop system gives you a competitive advantage. Many organizations don’t have a formal process for closing the customer feedback loop. If you have one, that places you above more than half of the competition in terms of making your customers feel seen and heard.
A closed-loop system increases your customer loyalty. Did you know that 83% of customers feel more loyal to brands that respond and resolve their complaints? Getting feedback is one thing, but acting on that feedback is what will keep your customers coming back time and time again.
A closed-loop system will decrease customer churn. By reducing your customer defection rate by just 5% using an effective closed-loop system, you can increase profits by 25-95%!
Additional benefits that come from putting effort into closing the customer feedback loop:
Prevent problems – By implementing a closed-loop element into a customer feedback program like Net Promoter Score, you can identify problems before they escalate. Using automation and data analytics, you can recognize recurring themes in customer surveys that need to be addressed to avoid those same problems for future customers.
Discover upsell opportunities – Even satisfied customers can have great feedback on how you can improve your product or service. Maybe you don’t offer a product in a certain color, or something on the website is confusing. Either way, there is always room for improvement, and those improvements can become upsells for your customers.
Create and foster long-term relationships – When a customer feels that you listen to their concerns and respond to them, they are more likely to be return customers and bring referrals. Every time you acknowledge your customers for taking the time to provide feedback, you are strengthening your relationship with them.
Retain current customers – studies show that returning customers spend 60% more money on purchases and provide more referrals than new customers. It is also 5 to 25 times more expensive to find new customers than to retain existing ones. By closing the customer feedback loop, you help customers feel more loyal to your brand and come back for more.
Avoid customer churn – 89% of customers switch brands after a bad experience with a company if the company does not respond to their problems or complaints.
Are you convinced? Great! Now that you’re on board, we’ve outlined the 7 most important steps you need to take to get started with an effective closed-loop system.
Getting Started with a Closed-Loop System
1. Get Executive Buy-In
Customer experience is an investment, and for your program to have a positive impact—and succeed—you need buy-in from your executive team. For best results, we’ve found that closed-loop pilot programs focused on a few locations usually are the easiest for executives to get behind. With fewer locations, it’s easier to prove the efficacy of the program without straining your brand’s resources too much.
2. Prioritize Initiatives
Implementing a closed-loop system is a marathon, not a sprint. No matter the size of your company, setting up your program will take time. As your program matures, look for the easy wins to gain credibility and prove success within your organization. Once you’ve found your stride, gradually move on to more complicated issues.
3. Harness Existing Business Knowledge
Identify employees with an understanding of your organization’s operations, and empower them to resolve customer issues as they occur. Your employees know your business and are in a unique position to help your customers and quickly close the loop on customer issues.
4. Commit to Faster Resolution
As technology advances and the customer experience evolves, consumers expect more and more from your brand. Expectations have risen to the point that 42% of consumers said that if they contact your brand for support, they expect a response within 60 minutes. Resolve customer issues in a timely fashion, and your customers will reward you with repeat business and brand advocacy throughout the years.
5. Increase Organizational Agility
Don’t get too comfortable with the way things have always been done in regard to your CX program. Treat every customer issue as you would if you were a small business, and resolve it as quickly—and personably—as possible. Customers want to feel special, and the quicker you’re able to adapt to individual customer issues, the more you’ll be able to reduce customer churn and ensure organizational success.
6. Make Individual Contact
Your customers don’t care about the size of your business; they care about how your brand treats them on a personal level. Study your brand’s customer journey, gather feedback, and identify ways to increase the amount of personal contact during the process of resolving a customer issue. A simple note or phone call can have a profound impact on the success of your program.
7. Empower Your Employees
As mentioned earlier, your employees understand the way your organization operates better than anyone else. This knowledge puts them in a unique position to understand customer issues and know the right solution for resolving the problem. Have faith in your employees and give them the autonomy they need to address customer issues on a case-by-case basis and resolve them as efficiently and personably as possible.
The Value of Closing the Loop
Closed-loop systems are one of the most effective ways to not only reduce customer churn but proves the financial impact of your brand’s customer experience program. One client of ours implemented a closed-loop system that helped them identify nearly $23 million in potential revenue.
Other studies have found that closed-loop programs help retain customers, which can increase company value (up to 30%) and increase profits (up to 125%).
You can learn more from Pearl-Plaza expert Jim Katzman about the value of closing the loop in his article here.
3 Myths Around Closed Loop Systems
When developing an effective closed-loop system, it is just as important to think about what to do as well as what NOT to do. We’ve put together a list of 3 myths revolving around closed-loop systems—and what you can do to avoid them.
Myth #1: Closed-Loop Systems Are Not Profitable
An effective closed-loop system will not only help you break even, it will help save you money! While many people think that closed-loop systems handle singular cases, they actually help you identify business trends and get ahead of them! By anticipating, not merely reacting, to your customer’s needs, you’ll be improving experiences before they even happen.
Myth #2: Closed-Loop Systems Are Only Relevant for Certain Industries
There is a stigma surrounding closed-loop systems—that they only belong in certain industries, such as retail or food service. While those industries definitely benefit from closed-loop systems, they are not the only ones with something to gain! Every business, regardless of the industry they operate in, can benefit from a system that gives you the ability to identify the next best action for a customer and address the root cause of issues to ensure continuous improvement.
Checkout this case study to see how one of our Financial Services clients utilized a closed-loop system to improve their NPS score as well as other business-specific metrics!
Myth #3: Closed-Loop Systems Are Too Complex
A system that allows you to quickly respond to customer complaints, analyze data to identify customer trends, and share knowledge within your organization to create a holistic view of the customer experience? It sounds like it would be a headache to implement. Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth—if you have the right partner!
Automating the Customer Feedback Loop-Closing Process
Closing the loop shouldn’t be a complex process, with automation you can simplify the method. For example, if you use Intercom to communicate with customers, you’re in luck. It’s extremely easy to implement a customer experience (CX) program that will close the customer feedback loop with Pearl-Plaza’s entirely code-free Intercom Messenger Integration and start gathering feedback right in Intercom chat. Pearl-Plaza’s NPS microsurvey can be integrated with Intercom Messenger with one click and survey responses automatically appear in Intercom user records. This makes it easy to set up automated follow-up messages to survey respondents based on their sentiment. Whether or not you use Intercom and Pearl-Plaza, you can adapt a closed-loop process to your own systems as you handle customer feedback.
Real-Life Example of an Automated Closed-Loop System
Lead-gen software startup Albacross recently shared how they were able to swiftly automate a full-cycle NPS program. While the team started by simply sending NPS surveys through Intercom, they quickly realized the value in closing the customer feedback loop with all of their respondents–detractors, passives, and promoters. For Albacross, automating a close-the-loop process took just a few simple steps and the results have been incredible. Albacross has been able to understand its detractors on a whole new level, and they’ve been able to leverage promoters to drive more business.
Ask Detractors for Product Feedback
Sure, it might not feel great when you’ve received some low scores from valued customers on your customer surveys. But, qualitative feedback from detractors can become a guiding light for your organization as it chooses what issues and insights it wants to prioritize in closing the customer feedback loop. You should also pay attention to detractors because a low score is often an indicator of customers who are at higher risk of churn. In other words, it’s crucial that you leverage your detractors – there is so much that you can learn from them. And, it’s quite simple – here’s how Albacross automated their messages for detractors:
For users who rate their app low (0-6), Albacross sends two Intercom messages that ask for additional feedback. The main purpose of asking for additional customer feedback is to start the conversation and gain a deeper understanding of how the customer feels, what they’re struggling with, and why they’re disappointed.
Albacross sends messages via email:
and via in-app messages that appear immediately after the user completes the survey:
When creating these automated messages, it’s important that you pay great attention to the simplicity and brevity of the message you’re sending out. In this case, Albacross only asks users for a single thing that they can improve to make it as easy as possible for customers to answer.
Ask Promoters to review you on Capterra or G2 Crowd
What about all of your promoters? How can you make use of all this praise and admiration coming from your customers?
Here’s the answer: close the customer feedback loop by getting your promoters to share their experience on online review sites.
Online reviews are of utmost importance in a buyer’s evaluation process, especially in the B2B world, since these transactions often involve many people and large investments of money. According to a study done by G2 Crowd and Heinz Marketing, 71% of B2B buyers look at online reviews during the consideration stage. In addition, 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a trusted review. By getting happy customers to share their positive experiences online, your organization can build credibility, improve trust, and increase brand awareness among potential buyers. If you’ve got happy customers, the momentum is already there – it’s now your job to transfer that positive momentum from your surveys to review sites.
Let’s take a look at how Albacross closes the loop with their promoters.
For users who give the app a passive rating (7-8), Albacross sends an email of gratitude to let them know that they appreciate the user’s feedback. This is sent via in-app message.
You’ll notice that Albacross’s message is short and sweet, and at the end, they ask their users to leave them a review on Capterra.
For users who rate the app very high (9-10), the Albacross team sends an email with similar content, but this email is sent from their CEO.
Closing the Customer Feedback Loop with Automation Leads to Results
Automating your close-the-loop process is guaranteed to uncover invaluable insights and drive high-impact action, whether that’s fixing a common issue for detractors or sending promoters to a review site to share their praise for your product. We cannot stress the value of closing the customer feedback loop enough.
In the case of Albacross, their efforts in closing the customer feedback loop and automating their program saw two key tangible effects:
Albacross’s NPS Score is consistently climbing. In just a short period of time, Albacross has more than 2x’ed their NPS score. Anyone with any experience with NPS knows that this is not an easy feat.
Secondly, Albacross now has a rating of 4.5/5 and 100+ reviews on Capterra. Most of the reviews that they’ve gathered recently have come from promoters who were directed to Capterra from Albacross’s automated Intercom messages.
So, go forth and close the customer feedback loop with survey respondents. It’s easy when you automate!
For more tips and tricks on closing the customer feedback loop, read our whitepaper designed to help you learn all you need to know to help you make a difference in your company using customer feedback.
Get the Closed-Loop System Starter Kit with Pearl-Plaza’s Closed-Loop Action Package
Not sure where to start? No worries, we are here to help. We have developed a Closed-Loop Action Package that contains everything you need to get started with a system that will improve your business tomorrow, today!
Our Closed-Loop Action Package consists of four products: Case Management, Alerts & Notifications, Moments, and Reporting. Let’s break down what those are and what they mean for your business.
Case Management: Manage, track, prioritize, and resolve customer experience cases. Supports the ability to track communications with customers about their experience and helps to surface the root cause of customer issues from the employee perspective. Case Management is available on all managed survey programs purchased with XI Platform and allows for flexible filtering, for example, case status (closure or expiration), case owner, or case timer
Alerts & Notifications: Provides the ability to notify designated users based on specified criteria which may include scores and/or verbatim content tags. Includes up to 5 notification workflows per survey program from employee recognition, phrase/score recognition, and customer rescue alerts. Alerts can be sent via email, text, or other custom systems.
Moments: Case Management integrates with the Moments mobile application to enable the creation of cases and close the feedback loop on the go. With Moments, users can create and amend favorite collections, share feedback, create a case, mark moments invalid, or complete and close the loop so they get the insights they need to take immediate action.
Reporting: Offers insights into closed-loop data. Users can visualize and monitor cases at a high level. Program owners can immediately see stats such as average days to close a case, hours to first action, and number of escalated cases.
Voice of Employee: Supports the ability to track communications with customers about their experience and helps to surface the root cause of customer issues from the employee’s perspective. Incorporate the voice of the employee tasked with case resolution with a built-in questionnaire to uncover actionable intelligence from your employees; including customer and employee sentiment, and the root cause of the customer issue.
Khoros. Must-Know customer service statistics of 2023 (so far) (https://khoros.com/blog/must-know-customer-service-statistics). Accessed 3/12/2024.
Forbs. Don’t Spend 5 Times More Attracting New Customers, Nurture the Existing Ones (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2018/09/12/dont-spend-5-times-more-attracting-new-customers-nurture-the-existing-ones/). Accessed 3/12/2024.
Help Scout. 107 Customer Service Statistics and Facts You Shouldn’t Ignore (https://www.helpscout.net/75-customer-service-facts-quotes-statistics/). Accessed 3/12/2024.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
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In today’s fiercely competitive business environment, customer satisfaction is paramount to success. Happy customers become brand advocates, fueling growth through positive customer feedback. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric reveals the essence of customer sentiment and unlocks the path to business success, so it is important that you take the time to uncover net promoter score drivers.
By using the Net Promoter Score system as your compass, you can gain a better understanding of what drives customer loyalty and satisfaction. In this article we will share the three key drivers of NPS identified in our latest report, State of Customer Experience: 2023 UK Consumer Study, conducted in partnership with NPSx by Bain & Company, which reveals how to transform NPS from a numerical score to a strategic advantage!
Net Promoter Score Driver #1: Deliver on Product Quality and Innovation
Customer experience plays a crucial role in driving great product quality and innovation. As a reminder we have listed the steps to consider:
Company Purpose: Define your company’s purpose and why it exists, what does it hope to achieve for its customers and why. What differentiates you from your competitors, what value do your customers get from your product, and what are the unique solutions you provide.
Identify Pain Points: By listening to your customers’ experiences and collecting feedback at various touch points along the journey by utilising voice of the customer surveys, you can identify areas where your product falls short or where improvements can be made.
Understand Customer Expectations: By analysing and understanding your customers’ feelings and emotions using sentiment and text analytics towards a product or service you are offering, you are able to align your development efforts with customer needs and preferences.
Usability Testing and User Experience Research: By observing how customers interact with your product, you can identify usability issues, confusing workflows, or design flaws.
Continuous Improvement: Customer experience serves as a continuous customer feedback loop for product improvement and helps you to identify emerging trends, evolving needs, and areas that require ongoing enhancement.
Net Promoter Score Driver #2: Make it Easy For Your Customers To Get Help
Making it easy to get help is the third most important driver of NPS. During challenging times, customers appreciate brands that provide assistance and support when needed.
Here are some proven recommendations on how you can identify moments to deliver great value:
Simplify Processes: Streamline your processes to minimise complexity and eliminate unnecessary steps. Focus on making each step clear, intuitive, and user-friendly.
Enable Self Service Through Digital Channels: Invest in user-friendly digital platforms, such as websites, mobile apps, and self-service portals, to facilitate easy self-serve interactions with your business. Ensure these channels are accessible, responsive, and offer a seamless experience across devices.
Don’t Forget The Human Touch: Free the time for customer service agents to focus on more complex or challenging interactions with customers, who are not able to self-serve. Train and enable agents to better understand and empathise with customers’ feelings.
Personalise Interactions: Tailor your customer interactions to meet individual needs. Leverage customer data and analytics to understand their preferences, purchase history, and behaviour.
Seamless Omnichannel Experience: Ensure a seamless experience across all customer touchpoints, whether online or offline. Customers should be able to start an interaction on one channel and seamlessly transition to another without losing context.
Get Customer Feedback: By capturing feedback on the customer service experience, companies can gain insights into their strengths and weaknesses, enabling them to make targeted improvements and enhance overall customer satisfaction.
Net Promoter Score Driver #3: Enable Your Employees and Strengthen Your NPS
Your Employees are Your Greatest Asset
High-quality employees are essential for delivering an exceptional customer experience (CX). They are crucial for creating and maintaining a positive customer experience, ultimately leading to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and business success.
Here are some strategies to leverage employee experience:
Focus on Employee Engagement: Actively engage employees by involving them in decision-making processes, recognising their contributions, and fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture. Provide opportunities for growth and development, and ensure that employees have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Doing this will actively increase employee commitment and create more positive customer experiences.
Regularly Seek and Act on Feedback: Create mechanisms for employees to provide feedback and suggestions for improvement. Actively listen to their concerns, address any issues promptly, and take appropriate action to improve the employee experience.
Recognise and Reward Performance: Implement recognition and reward programmes that acknowledge and appreciate employees’ hard work and achievements. Celebrate milestones, exceptional performance, and behaviors aligned with the organisation’s values.
Invest in Learning and Development: Offer continuous learning and development opportunities to enhance employees’ skills and knowledge.
If you are unsure whether your existing CX technology vendor can help you achieve these goals, we would be happy to talk to you about how we can assist you. Pearl-Plaza’s award-winning AI-based experience improvement technology and decades of industry expertise combined with NPSx market-leading training certification and communities for CX practitioners, and CX Roadmap & Assessments help organisations align and prioritise their CX investments, create customer-centric cultures and give clients a comprehensive set of solutions to support customer loyalty and business growth.
Take the initiative today and book your meeting to start your journey towards improved NPS and a remarkable customer experience. We look forward to discussing how we can support your growth and success.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
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More and more companies are realizing that the customer experience is more important than ever before. As a matter of fact, customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that don’t focus on customers.
Among the arsenal of tools available to create continuous positive experiences, predictive analytics software and, more specifically, predictive analytics tools stand out as game-changers in not only understanding customer behavior but also in shaping exceptional customer experiences. In this article, we delve into the world of predictive analytics tools, their pivotal role in the customer experience industry, and why businesses can’t afford to overlook their potential.
What Are Predictive Analytics Tools?
Predictive analytics tools are the modern-day wizards of data-driven decision-making. They harness the power of advanced algorithms and historical data to forecast future outcomes. These tools take a proactive approach, helping businesses anticipate customer behavior, preferences, and trends with remarkable accuracy.
By analyzing patterns, predictive analytics tools offer insights that enable businesses to make informed choices, quickly implement a closed-loop system, and fine-tune their CX strategies.
The Role of Predictive Analytics in Customer Experience
At the heart of predictive analytics software lies the ability to decipher complex data and transform it into actionable insights. By capturing and analyzing customer data across various touchpoints, businesses gain a comprehensive view of their customers’ journeys. This deeper understanding leads to tailored interactions, personalized recommendations, and improved problem resolution. With predictive insights, companies can stay ahead of customer demands, enhance engagement, and foster long-lasting relationships.
Key Features and Functionalities of Predictive Analytics Tools
Predictive analytics tools offer an array of features designed to unravel the intricacies of customer behavior. From sentiment analysis and trend identification to customer segmentation and churn prediction, these tools equip businesses with the knowledge needed to make strategic decisions.
For instance, a retail company could use predictive analytics to forecast demand spikes, ensuring optimal stock levels and preventing disappointed customers. In doing this, this retail company would ensure that they are creating a positive retail customer experience.
Selecting the Right Predictive Analytics Tools
Choosing the right predictive analytics tool is a critical decision that can shape the success of your CX initiatives. Factors such as ease of use, scalability, integration capabilities, and the tool’s alignment with your business goals should be considered. Leading solutions like Pearl-Plaza’s XI Platform offer a user-friendly interface, seamless integrations with existing systems, and a track record of delivering actionable insights.
Implementation and Best Practices
Implementing predictive analytics tools requires a strategic approach. Begin by defining clear objectives and aligning them with your CX goals. Then, gather relevant data from various sources and ensure its accuracy.
It is important to collaborate with data analysts and domain experts to fine-tune algorithms and models. Remember that predictive insights are most valuable when combined with human expertise. Leverage the insights to personalize customer interactions, optimize marketing campaigns, and preemptively address issues.
Future Trends and Innovations
As technology advances, so does the potential of predictive customer analytics. With the advent of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data, predictive tools are becoming even more sophisticated. Businesses can expect enhanced predictive accuracy, real-time insights, and the ability to forecast customer preferences with unprecedented precision. Staying updated on these trends will be crucial for businesses aiming to maintain a competitive edge in the CX arena.
Real-World Benefits and Success Stories
Implementing predictive analytics tools in your customer experience program will help you achieve real-world business outcomes, and get you closer to mastering the four pillars of customer experience ROI.
Don’t believe us? Pearl-Plaza recently partnered with Foot Locker to help them manage large quantities of data from multiple different sources to become proactive about their customer’s needs, not reactive. Read the full customer story to learn more!
Predictive Analytics Tools Moving Forward
In the dynamic world of customer experience, predictive analytics tools emerge as indispensable assets. By unlocking the power of data-driven predictions, businesses can transform customer interactions from reactive to proactive. With a deep understanding of customer behavior and trends, companies can refine their strategies, deliver personalized experiences, and build lasting customer relationships.
As the customer experience landscape continues to evolve, embracing predictive analytics tools is no longer an option—it’s a strategic imperative. Click here to find out how you can use predictive analytics tools to take your customer experience program to the next level!
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In the world of customer experience, surveys have been a reliable feedback-collecting source for decades. As we make our way forward with new CX technologies and approaches, survey fatigue remains a key operational concern. CX professionals are finding it more challenging than ever to keep program momentum alive. Today, I’m going to share some tips for reviewing your survey program for better response rates, higher program engagement, and better representative results. Use these tips to deliver excellent experiences for your customers while demonstrating that their voice is being heard!
The Road to Alleviate Survey Fatigue
As our approaches to customer experience advance, so does the challenge of survey fatigue. This is a hurdle that CX professionals confront head-on as they strive to maintain the momentum of their survey programs. In the following sections, I will delve into strategies that not only increase your response rate but also invigorate program engagement and yield more representative results. By implementing these techniques, you’ll not only provide outstanding customer experiences but also emphasize that their feedback is not just heard, but genuinely valued.
#1. Make Surveys Shorter. A LOT Shorter.
How many times have you called a customer service representative and thought, “I am your customer—you should already know all these details about me.” Well, people are potentially thinking this about your surveys, too. Ideally, experience surveys should take 2-4 minutes to complete, which can be easily achieved by cutting out the questions to which you already know the answers. You can start your journey to beating survey fatigue with shortening surveys further by removing surplus demographic or operational data that could be sourced from your CRM or data lake (e.g. age, products held, customer tenure), and ultimately improved response rates.
Another technique to fight survey fatigue that is successful for many brands is to leverage microsurveys for mobile and other digital environments. A survey can be set up at each key digital touchpoint (like on a mobile app or website) to send a one or two question microsurvey with an open text box to capture immediate, in-the-moment responses from customers.
Learn how Hootsuite tripled their Net Promoter Score by using Pearl-Plaza’s microsurveys!
#2. Ask Survey Questions That Drive Action.
Whilst “good” survey questions vary from industry to industry, there are some overarching considerations that you need to keep in mind when drafting customer survey questions:
Make sure each survey question has an owner within your organisation;
Consider the type of action that can be taken within your organisation from this question
Minimise words used in your questions. If the idea is clear without excess words, trim down wherever possible
Confirm each survey question is either aligned to customer experience goals and / or targets (e.g. expected front line behaviour or a KPI).
By keeping each of these principles in mind, you’ll ensure that each question can drive action within your organisation, which could in turn be used in comms to demonstrate you’ve listened to customer feedback and taken action to drive an improved customer experience!
Want to see what a survey that drives action looks like? Learn how Pizza Hut UK partnered with Pearl-Plaza to optimise survey design which resulted in double the average number of survey responses. Read the full Pizza Hut customer story today!
#3. Make Your Surveys Count: Pull Transactional and Journey Surveys Into Your Case Management Program
Surveys can be seen as the starting point of a customer conversation. Case management programs—also known as closed loop feedback (CLF) programs—enable trained staff to connect with customers one on one. Frontline staff call back customers to understand why an experience was either great or has room for improvement, and provide a chance to really connect with customers and hear their stories first hand. This can help drive continuous improvement initiatives, or provide customer-driven evidence to support larger initiatives that may require a business-case. Further, and if conducted with a treatment / control approach (e.g. 50% of CLF qualifying customers receive a call), you can track how customers’ behaviour has changed after you close the loop.
Don’t underestimate the potential positive brand impact you’ll see when customers receive a call from a representative after clicking “submit” on their survey. By optimising case management, it will give your program the opportunity to evolve outside of analytics, and start directly contributing more to other operational areas of the business.
In this world where we can reach customers in so many different ways, asking customers “how would you rate XYZ”, “why did you rate XYZ”, and “thinking over these elements, how would you rate…” can be boring, let’s be honest, especially if it is a long survey. Instead, we encourage you to make your surveys shorter to fight survey fatigue and look beyond the questions to discover how the customer’s voice can influence your organisation’s operational performance through CLF and actionable insights.
To learn more about what makes a great survey and how to combat survey fatigue, schedule a demo today!
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Mastering unstructured data analytics is going to be key for any business wanting to improve the customer experience, and succeed in today’s business environment. While traditional customer feedback is a goldmine of insights that can drive business growth, a substantial portion of this valuable feedback lies in unstructured data. Emails, social media posts, customer reviews, call center transcripts, and open-ended survey responses—all hold crucial information about customer sentiment and preferences. Leveraging unstructured data analytics is the key to transforming this raw data into actionable insights that can transform your customer experience strategy.
Understanding Unstructured Data Analytics
Understanding unstructured data analytics is crucial for businesses looking to extract valuable insights from vast and diverse data sources. Unstructured data, in contrast to traditional structured data, poses unique challenges due to its lack of predefined formats. It encompasses a wide array of data types, such as text, audio, images, and video content, making it difficult to analyze using conventional methods.
However, through the application of advanced technologies like Natural Language Processing (NLP), voice analytics, and predictive customer analytics, companies can now unlock the hidden potential of unstructured data, gaining deeper customer insights and improving decision-making processes.
Being able to analyze unstructured data is not only about processing data but also about recognizing the invaluable insights within it. By tapping into unstructured data sources, businesses can elevate their customer experience strategies, customer experience research, improve personalized interactions, and create more meaningful connections with their target audience, ultimately gaining a competitive edge in today’s data-driven marketplace.
The Challenge of Unstructured Data
Unstructured data analytics can be a challenging process due to its diverse nature. However, it holds immense potential to unveil customer sentiments, emotions, and expectations, which can significantly impact business decisions. Traditional data analysis techniques fall short in making sense of this unstructured data, leading to missed opportunities and incomplete insights.
Moreover, the sheer volume of unstructured data can overwhelm traditional data storage and processing systems, making it difficult to handle and manage. Companies may struggle with data silos and do not understand the danger of data silos in customer experience management. This various inefficiencies hinder their ability to consolidate and analyze data from multiple sources cohesively.
Addressing the challenge of unstructured data necessitates investing in cutting-edge technologies and data management strategies to unlock its true potential and gain a competitive advantage in the era of data-driven decision-making.
The Benefits of Unstructured Data Analytics:
From deeper customer insights and improved customer experiences to data-driven decision-making, unstructured data analytics paves the way for a transformative journey towards customer-centricity and long-term business success. Let’s dive in and look at the benefits of unstructured data analytics!
Deeper Customer Insights
Unstructured data analytics unlocks hidden patterns and trends that may not be apparent in structured data alone. This deeper understanding of customer preferences and pain points empowers businesses to tailor their products and services to meet customer demands effectively.
Unstructured data analytics allows companies to uncover hidden patterns and trends that would otherwise remain unnoticed, shedding light on subtle shifts in what drives your customer’s behavior and expectations. Armed with these in-depth insights, businesses can fine-tune their product offerings, service delivery, and marketing strategies to align precisely with customer demands and desires.
Moreover, unstructured data analytics offers a holistic view of the customer journey, capturing the entire spectrum of interactions across various touchpoints. This 360-degree understanding enables organizations to identify critical moments of truth that significantly impact customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Businesses can prioritize areas for improvement, focusing their efforts on delivering meaningful experiences that leave a lasting positive impression on customers.
Embracing the power of unstructured data analytics allows businesses to stay agile, customer-focused, and innovative, cementing their position as industry leaders and fostering long-term customer relationships based on trust and satisfaction.
Improved Customer Experience
With unstructured data analytics, organizations can adopt a proactive approach to customer experience management. Rather than reacting to customer complaints and issues as they arise, businesses can anticipate and resolve potential problems before they escalate. By staying ahead of the curve, companies can create a seamless and satisfying customer journey, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Embracing unstructured data analytics empowers companies to adapt quickly to the evolving needs and preferences of their customer base. As consumer behaviors change, businesses can make data-driven decisions, implement relevant enhancements, and offer personalized experiences that resonate with their target audience. This agility ensures that businesses remain competitive and stay ahead in the fast-paced and ever-changing marketplace.
Unlock the Voice of the Customer
Mastering unstructured data analytics is the key to unlocking the Voice of the Customer (VoC) and gaining profound insights into customer sentiments and preferences. The VoC represents the collective feedback, opinions, and expectations of customers across various touchpoints and interactions with a business. A significant portion of the VoC resides within unstructured data sources, such as customer reviews, open-ended survey responses, social media posts, and call center transcripts.
By harnessing advanced technologies like Natural Language Processing (NLP) and sentiment analysis, businesses can analyze unstructured text data to extract valuable insights from the VoC. NLP enables the understanding of customers’ words, emotions, and context, providing a deeper understanding of their experiences and feelings. Sentiment analysis helps gauge customer satisfaction levels, identify recurring issues, and spot emerging trends in customer feedback.
Mastering unstructured data analytics in the context of the VoC empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions, identify opportunities for improvement, and optimize their customer experience strategies. By listening attentively to the Voice of the Customer and tapping into unstructured data sources, companies can cultivate strong customer relationships, foster loyalty, and continuously refine their offerings to meet and exceed customer expectations.
To learn more about how unstructured data analytics is key to understanding the Voice of the Customer, read this white paper!
The Next Step to Mastering Unstructured Data Analytics
In the age of data-driven decision-making, tapping into unstructured data analytics is a game-changer for businesses aiming to elevate their customer experience strategy. By harnessing the power of natural language processing, voice analytics, and image and video analysis, companies can unveil valuable customer insights and create more personalized and meaningful interactions. Embracing unstructured data analytics will not only drive business growth but also position your organization as a customer-centric industry leader.
To learn more about how your brand can use unstructured data analytics to drive business success, request a demo here!
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It seems like the internet is full of ChatGPT “hacks” these days. We are all inundated by articles and webinars that start with “How to Use ChatGPT to…” I have also had way too many conversations with my Gen-Z son and millennial colleagues about how they use the tool to make everyday tasks go by more quickly. And I wouldn’t be the true customer experience nerd that I am if I didn’t ask: “Could we customer experience (CX) professionals leverage ChatGPT customer experience survey questions?”
On the surface, it seems like an obvious application for a ChatGPT customer experience approach. A survey is pretty straightforward, correct? Not so fast.
Keep reading to find out what happened when I tested this approach and why it may not be the best way to go when it comes to your customer listening approach.
Testing ChatGPT for Customer Experience Questions
I started off with a simple question for ChatGPT, hoping for a simple customer satisfaction survey, typing in, “Write me a survey.” You can see the screenshot of the output below.
A ChatGPT Customer Experience Survey
After reviewing the generated answer, you may be asking, “what’s missing?” Well, to the untrained eye, there could be little to no difference between a traditionally written survey and a ChatGPT customer experience survey. After all, there are demographic questions, the typical “How satisfied were you with your experience,” and other basic survey asks.
But here is what stands out to me as a glaring absence. What is missing is pretty much the most important part of any survey: the link to the business questions you are trying to answer by launching a survey in the first place!
Quick PSA from Jim: Creating surveys is an important topic, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that while surveys are a tried-and-true method of collecting customer feedback, they are not the only way (or the best way, in many cases) to hear from customers. With so many channels available for you to monitor the voice of the customer, to restrict yourself to surveys alone is to limit your insights. This is another topic for another day (but if you’re interested, you can learn more about other listening channels here). End of PSA.
For now, let’s talk about the risks of using AI like ChatGPT to write surveys!
ChatGPT Customer Experience Risks & Best Practices You Need to Know
ChatGPT Customer Experience Questions Miss the Point
Let me ask you a question: Is the point of your CX program to launch surveys? Now, many of you are likely rolling your eyes at me, but I promise, there’s a point to this. Hopefully, you answered no. Because the point of customer experience is not to ask questions, but to listen to customers and the market to help guide your path to achieving business goals. The questions are simply a vehicle to gain insight into what will help or hinder your business on the way to realizing those goals.
When you look at the output of ChatGPT customer experience questions in the screenshot above, these questions really miss the point. Yes, they are generic questions that we have all likely seen in surveys before, but what are they getting at? The only results I can see this survey gleaning is a scoreboard metric and some customer demographics that we might already have access to via other data sources.
When you craft surveys, the first questions you should ask should be for you and your team. Do you have a set of northstar goals (GOALS not scores!) for your customer experience program already? Great! If not, start that conversation with your executive stakeholders and team. Only then can you truly design your program, surveys, and other initiatives with the end goal in mind.
Once you have agreed upon a desired end goal, then you need to ask:
What are we hoping to learn?
Who are we hoping to learn from?
Do we already have access to this data?
If you want to gut-check your surveys, you can check out this CX survey assessment my colleagues developed to help you optimize your surveys!
ChatGPT Doesn’t Know Your Customers Like You Do
Context is everything. And when it comes to ChatGPT customer experience questions, they won’t have any of the contextual data that you do. If your CX program has been around for a while, you likely have a mountain of customer data around. And that existing data will shape what you already know, and what questions you still need to ask.
(Additionally, you might be tempted to feed ChatGPT some of your customer data, but that can unearth a whole boatload of security complications. Do you really want every ChatGPT user having access to your customer data? Didn’t think so.)
An effective customer listening strategy is personal and targeted. Speaking to the customer in their language is critical. Many brands have worked hard to develop a brand persona. Asking customers for feedback in a sterile, canned voice will not yield the best results or further endear your brand to your customers. I don’t believe your brand personalization can be accomplished by a ChatGPT survey—at least not today.
ChatGPT Is a Starting Block, Not the Finish Line
Now you may be thinking, “Jim, you’ve made a good case for the risks of using ChatGPT for customer experience surveys. But there has to be some way I can use it.” I’m glad you asked and yes, there is!
I know we have all heard the fear-mongering conversations about AI taking jobs. And if we’re being realistic, AI will eliminate some jobs, but it will also create new ones. Those who will be safe from that chopping block are those professionals who learn how to leverage AI to increase efficiency and perfect skills that AI alone just can’t manage without human input.
In the customer experience space, this could be leveraging ChatGPT as a starting point, then leveraging the additional context you have about your customers and your brand’s identity to perfect its suggestions.
For example, ChatGPT can give you phrasing ideas for your survey questions as long as you are very specific in your prompts. It can also help you to think of other ways to ask questions you’ve been posing to customers for a long time, giving your same old relationship and post-transaction surveys a refresh.
It’s not about AI or humans. It’s about humans using AI to improve and become more imaginative and efficient.
I will end with this. I do not want to come off as a “debbie downer” or, even worse, as naive. AI is going to have an increased role in customer experience and in creating the listening posts that practitioners create to capture customer insight. But, I believe true value will be well beyond simply crafting a survey.
The real power of ChatGPT and other AI tools will be to help understand the data that comes from a survey or the multiple direct and indirect data sources that make up the voice of the customer. And, just to validate this statement, I asked ChatGPT why the voice of the customer is important? In this case, ChatGPT was spot on:
I think we can all agree that ChatGPT is right on target with that answer.
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In today’s business landscape, customer experience (CX) has become a critical differentiator. Customers have high expectations when it comes to interactions with brands, and delivering exceptional experiences has a direct impact on loyalty, satisfaction, and overall business success. To meet these demands, companies are turning to customer experience experts who possess the knowledge and skills to enhance CX platforms and drive customer-centric strategies.
Who Are Customer Experience Experts?
Customer experience experts are professionals with a deep understanding of customer behavior, psychology, and industry best practices. They bring a unique blend of expertise, combining data analysis, strategic thinking, and a customer-centric mindset. These professionals often have backgrounds in fields like market research, customer service, UX design, and psychology. Many of them also have experience leading customer experience programs at the world’s greatest brands, and now advise other CX professionals on how to grow programs that benefit their businesses.
Why Are Customer Experience Experts Important?
The importance of customer experience for modern businesses cannot be overstated. Companies that prioritize customer experience outperform their competitors and build long-term customer loyalty. However, achieving exceptional customer experience requires a dedicated focus on understanding and addressing customer needs and expectations at every touchpoint. This is where customer experience experts play a crucial role.
Customer experience experts possess the skills to identify pain points in the customer journey and suggest actionable improvements. By analyzing customer data, conducting surveys, and studying customer feedback, they uncover valuable insights that can drive transformative changes. They have a finger on the pulse of evolving customer expectations, enabling businesses to proactively adapt and stay ahead of the competition.
How Can Customer Experience Experts Elevate Your CX Initiative?
Customer experience experts can elevate your CX platform in several ways:
Assessing and Optimizing Your CX Program: Customer experience experts bring fresh perspectives and extensive experience. They can evaluate your existing CX program, from your customer listening strategy to your governance approach and beyond, to identify areas of improvement and suggest strategies to enhance customer satisfaction and improve on business-critical goals such as customer acquisition and retention.
Leveraging Data-Driven Insights: Customer experience experts are skilled in analyzing data to uncover patterns, trends, and customer preferences. By leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning techniques, they can make data-driven recommendations that improve business outcomes.
Implementing CX Technologies: With their expertise in CX technologies, customer experience experts can help you adopt and integrate cutting-edge tools such as AI chatbots, sentiment analysis platforms, and omnichannel solutions. These technologies streamline interactions, personalize experiences, and enhance customer engagement.
Collaborating With Your Team: Customer experience experts work collaboratively with your team, aligning CX strategies with your business goals. Their ability to communicate and influence stakeholders ensures that the CX improvements are integrated seamlessly across departments, resulting in a consistent and superior customer experience.
How Your Business Benefits From the Customer Experience Experts at Pearl-Plaza
In a world where customer expectations are continually rising, delivering exceptional experiences is no longer a choice, but a necessity. Engaging with customer experience experts at Pearl-Plaza can make the difference between a passable customer experience to one that is a true differentiator for your brand and a driver for your business.
Pearl-Plaza’s customer experience experts include our expert practitioners and Strategic Insights Team, a dedicated team of consultants with over sixty years of research, marketing sciences, and advanced statistical expertise.
These individuals are embedded in our clients’ organizations, helping them transform any type of data into actionable (ROI) insights.
These customer experience experts take a unique approach of “designing with the end in mind,” which enables our clients to understand their customers, non-customers, and employees at a granular level. Additionally, their expertise further empowers our clients to build strategies and action plans that focus on the bottom line: acquisition, retention, customer lifetime value, and cost reduction opportunities.
The Strategic Insights Team’s services include:
Industry Benchmarking
Market Pulse Surveys
Journey Mapping
True-Driver Analysis
ROI-Based Linkages
And more!
These customer experience experts and their understanding of customer behavior, analyzing data, and implementing CX strategies can transform your business, boost customer satisfaction, and drive sustainable growth. Don’t miss the opportunity to leverage their skills and insights to stay ahead in the competitive marketplace. Invest in a CX provider that includes strategic services and other experts today and make your customer experience a differentiating factor for your business success!
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In our recent virtual panel discussion, we explored how different financial firms are embracing the Consumer Duty Act and identified areas where most of their resources have been designated. The panelists engaged in insightful discussions, sharing their organisational challenges and best practices, while attendees were to engage in polls aimed at answering three key questions on preparedness, challenges, and changes related to Consumer Duty.
And because at Pearl-Plaza, we value sharing knowledge as widely as possible, I’m going to share the results of that in-event poll with you here, along with a few thoughts about our learnings.
How Prepared Do You Feel for Consumer Duty?
We were pleased to see that the majority of firms who joined us felt very prepared, with 50% selecting this option, and no one stating that they weren’t prepared at all.
The panelists shared valuable insights on embracing changes and putting customers at the center of their business. A key takeaway was the importance of ensuring that everyone in the organisation was informed and that they understood what Consumer Duty means for the whole business, but also their specific accountability in delivering against it. Increasing awareness and providing comprehensive training to employees are crucial steps toward ensuring adherence to the act’s expectations.
The discussion around preparation also highlighted the importance of assessing product alignment with target customers, the risks of non-compliance, and the benefits of adopting a customer-first approach.
Furthermore, the concept of “substantive compliance” was emphasized as a means to exceed expectations and gain a competitive advantage. Ensuring the needs of vulnerable customers are met was also discussed as a crucial aspect of achieving desired outcomes.
What Have Been Your Biggest Challenges in Getting Ready for Consumer Duty?
When asked about the biggest challenges they have faced, there was an equal split between “creating change within the organisation to adapt to the FCA requirements” and “conflicting priorities.” Both challenges undoubtedly speak to the need to implement new processes as well as ways of thinking, especially when strategic plans or other requirements such as digital transformation were already planned as necessities.
Solving for these challenges requires an organisation to embrace the Consumer Duty Act as an opportunity for a strategic evolution, rather than a complete upheaval of existing business strategies. The key is in adapting your perspective to see these adjustments as a fine tuning rather than a complete abandonment of the preexisting travel plan.
There was also emphasis on fostering a culture of ongoing learning and improvement. By embracing a mindset of adaptability and remaining attuned to shifting customer expectations and regulatory landscapes, organisations will be best able to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities presented by the act.
What Are the Biggest Changes That You Have Made Towards Identifying Risk Amongst Your Customers?
Lastly, we asked attendees about the biggest changes they had made to identify at-risk customers. The poll and the subsequent discussion revealed the significant industry-wide adoption of integrating diverse data sources (other than traditional surveys) into Marketing Intelligence (MI), with the third poll showing that 81% had integrated different data sources into their reporting. This integration empowers organisations to leverage comprehensive data, driving focus and strategic changes that are aligned with evolving customer needs.
Leaders in this space have continued to make adjustments to their CX programmes to support Consumer Duty requirements such as reviewing touchpoints and customer journeys to bridge gaps, more effective dissemination of customer insights to stakeholders, and a greater focus on measuring consumer understanding in order to take proactive action to address improvement areas. This final action leads to not only improved communication out to customers but also improved internal communication around expectations and making material more inclusive to drive better understanding.
“Firms should harness the benefits of data and technology to improve their services and understand the outcomes they achieve for their customers.”
The FCA
To get access to detailed notes, poll data and more, you can click here for a full summary of the Consumer Duty Panel Discussion!
It’s clear that the most successful brands will be those that focus on enhancing their customer-centric culture, putting the customer at the heart of all decision making, rather than focusing only on a compliance-first approach.
Having the right experience programme in place can help build customer centricity and use it to your advantage!
Find out how Pearl-Plaza can help you embrace these changes to:
Deliver positive outcomes for your customers
Gain an improved consumer understanding
Identify customers at risk to complain and churn
Develop a culture of continuous experience improvement
Click the link if you would like to learn more about how Pearl-Plaza can help you with Consumer Duty Compliance!
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Customer experience surveys have served us well when it comes to collecting customer feedback data. When we have questions about our brand’s customer experience (CX), there’s no better way to get answers than by asking our customers directly, right? But how do you make sure you’re sending the best possible customer experience survey? Asking the right questions? Sending your survey at time?
Keep reading to find the answers to these questions and more in this overview of customer experience survey facts, best practices, and beyond.
What Is a Customer Experience Survey?
Customer experience surveys are customizable questionnaires sent to targeted customer segments to determine how a brand is performing, uncover areas where customers are satisfied, and detect areas in need of improvement across the customer journey. The end goal of these surveys is to improve customer experiences and impact business metrics.
Why Use Customer Experience Surveys?
Customer experience surveys are more vital than ever before due to an extremely competitive market in every industry as well as empowered consumers. In mere seconds, customers can compare your brand’s products and services with that of your competitors. Therefore, you cannot afford to overlook any areas of dissatisfaction that may prevent customers from purchasing from you.
When you deploy customer experience surveys and other methods of customer listening, however, you are placing your customer and their satisfaction at the heart of everything you do—and that pays. In fact, customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies who don’t focus on customers. This is largely due to the fact that brands who are customer centric leverage the insights they gain from customer experience surveys to make improvements for their customers, which improve the following metrics:
Customer Acquisition: Create exceptional experiences that attract new customers via word of mouth, and also leverage your voice of customer to create more targeted marketing campaigns.
Customer Retention: Reduce customer churn by resolving points of friction throughout your customer journey and leverage predictive analytics to identify customers who are likely to leave so you can implement a rescue plan.
Higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Understand what keeps customers around so you can continue to not only satisfy their needs, but go above and beyond to delight them, keeping them around for a lifetime
Lower Cost to Serve: Identify areas where you can eliminate duplicate efforts and inefficient processes so you can fine tune your approach to save time, effort, and money.
Different Types of Customer Experience Surveys
There are four popular types of customer experience surveys many businesses leverage across the customer journey to gauge their brand reputation, customer satisfaction, customer effort, and other more targeted metrics.
#1: Net Promoter Score (NPS)
What Is Net Promoter Score?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a method of measuring brand customer satisfaction that was released in 2003 by Fred Reichheld, a partner at Bain & Company. It is among the most popular customer experience metrics as 48% of companies with more than $500 million
in revenue are using NPS as their primary indicator for measuring the customer experience success.
How Is Net Promoter Score Measured?
The Net Promoter Score is based on one question: “What is the likelihood that you would recommend company x to a friend or colleague?” NPS then categorizes customers into three types. The customer type is based on their likelihood to recommend your brand on a scale of 0-10:
Promoters (10-9)
Passives (8-7)
Detractors (6-0)
Your Net Promoter Score is calculated by subtracting the percentage total of detractors from the percentage total of promoters.
Why Does Net Promoter Score Matter?
NPS helps brands to get a brand-level tracking study of their overall customer experience because it gives them a single metric to measure their brand health. Additionally, NPS helps brands adopt an easy-to-understand, common language by giving them one singular metric to keep track of.
Net Promoter Score Survey Template
If you are looking to deploy a NPS customer experience survey, you can use the following template to craft a Microsurvey for in-app, in-site, or in-platform feedback, or even for an email survey or SMS survey.
Net Promoter Score Customer Experience Survey Example
#2: Customer Satisfaction Score
What Is a Customer Satisfaction Score?
Customer Satisfaction Score or CSAT measures a customer’s level of contentment after a specific interaction, transaction, or general satisfaction with a specific feature within a product or service.
CSAT customer experience surveys ask “how satisfied are you with your recent experience at BRAND X?”
How Is Customer Satisfaction Score Measured?
Customer Satisfaction Score is equal to the total number of satisfied responses (with respondents who rated a 4-5 on a scale of 1-5 considered to be “Satisfied Responses”) divided by the total number of responses, then multiplied by 100. The final results should be rounded to the nearest whole number.
Why Does Customer Satisfaction Score Matter?
Customer Satisfaction Score is relatively easy to understand as it correlates to a single question on a survey. Also, it makes benchmarking against other brands simple and straightforward.
Additionally, CSAT customer experience surveys allow brands to get a snapshot of the customer experience at a specific touchpoint, which allows them to more easily identify areas that need improvement.
Customer Satisfaction Score Template
Looking to use CSAT post transaction or at another touchpoint? Check out this customer satisfaction score template:
Customer Satisfaction Score Customer Experience Survey on Mobile
#3: Customer Effort Score
What Is Customer Effort Score?
Customer Effort Score or CES is a customer experience survey metric that allows brands to measure the ease of customer interaction and resolution during a request.
The Customer Effort metric became popular in the 1990s as companies realized that understanding the amount of effort it takes a customer to do business with them is critical. The thinking was that effort should be low for easy interactions whereas customers should expect to put in more effort for complicated or involved experiences. Effort plus satisfaction would help the organizations understand whether they were delivering on expectations.
How Is Customer Effort Score Calculated?
CES appears on a customer experience survey by asking customers to rate whether they agree or disagree with this statement: “The company made it easy for me to handle my issue.”Customers answer according to a scale from 1-7 with 1 being “Strongly Disagree” and 7 being “Strongly Agree.”
Organizations then take the number of those who responded with 5 and above then divide by the total respondents to calculate the CES.
Why Does Customer Effort Score Matter?
CES is especially popular in contact centers, but it is becoming more popular with other industries. It also allows companies to focus on one goal: doing whatever it takes to make things easy for their customers. Therefore, they can unify their efforts and work toward
that desired outcome.
Customer Effort Score Template
If you’re looking for a Customer Effort Score template, you’ve come to the right place! Take a look below:
Customer Effort Score Customer Experience Survey via Chat
#4: Custom Customer Experience Surveys
When to Use a Custom Customer Experience Survey?
A customer CX survey allows you to ask more specific questions to targeted customer segments about a product, interaction, or service. These questions allow you to get into the details of your customer experiences to add more context to specific initiatives, such as product development, employee training initiatives, and beyond.
These customer customer experience surveys should be extremely targeted and designed to trigger at a very specific time, for instance, right after a customer performs the specific action your team is trying to fine tune.
There are plenty of benefits to using custom customer experience surveys, but the primary benefit has to be the fact that these surveys allow you to fill in any knowledge gaps or blind spots in your brand’s customer journey (more on this later).
How to Take Action on a Customer Experience Survey
Leveraging the metrics we’ve discussed so far is a great way to get a specific score associated with either your overall customer experience or customer satisfaction or ease at a specific touchpoint, but what about taking action on that metric to improve experiences? That’s why you need to get the story behind the score with a follow up question.
A follow up question comes after a metric-based question and simply asks, “What is the reason behind your score?” (or a variation of that question) and then leaves a text box open for customers to type in their explanation.
Net Promoter Customer Experience Survey With a Follow Up Question
This is where the most impactful insights will come from. Leveraging text analytics, you’ll be able to analyze the unstructured data from the text box to get to the why behind the score. It’s the difference between knowing an experience needs to be improved and knowing how an experience can be improved.
The best customer experience solutions will also provide dashboards within their platforms that identify the key drivers of specific experiences, which let you and your team know what elements of the customer experience you need to get right. Additionally, some CX platforms even can suggest action plans based on the unstructured data you collect via your customer experience surveys.
Customer Experience Survey Best Practices
When to Send a Customer Experience Survey?
When you should send a customer experience survey depends on why you are sending a survey. More relationship driven surveys with overarching questions like Net Promoter Score can have more flexible sending times, as you are gauging the overall satisfaction with a brand.
For more transaction- or interaction-based questions such as CSAT or CES, however, timing is everything. You want to make sure these surveys are sent right after the interaction in question. If there is a delay, you risk inaccurate data or lower response rates as the interaction or transaction is no longer top of mind for the customer.
You also want to make sure you aren’t sending surveys too frequently or you risk survey fatigue. If you’re reaching out to your customers every time you have a question, there’s a serious possibility that they’ll get tired of your questions and stop participating. This leads to lower response rates, which can affect the quality of the results you receive. Even worse, it can even cause over-surveyed customers to have a negative perception of your brand.
Where to Send a Customer Experience Survey?
There are various distribution channels you can leverage for your customer experience survey:
In-Store Surveys (via tablet, point of service, or push-button terminal)
Surveys via Push Notification
There are plenty of options, but the most important factor to consider is where your customers prefer to leave feedback. When you meet customers where they are and on the channels they frequent most often, you have a higher likelihood of sufficient response rates and more valuable and actionable feedback data.
Three Steps to Take Before Sending a Customer Experience Survey
Today, there are also so many other ways to collect customer feedback other than customer experience surveys. For instance, research shows that today’s customers are less likely to leave feedback via a traditional long form survey. However methods like Microsurveys, as well as social media and review sites and chatbots have grown in popularity.
Now, that doesn’t mean we need to abandon surveys all together! In fact, it’s just the opposite. It just means we need to send them at the right time and for the right reasons.
Below, we’ll talk through three expert-advised steps you should take before you send that customer experience survey.
Step #1: Ask, “What Am I Trying to Achieve With This Customer Experience Survey?”
This first step may seem a little rudimental, but we find that it is often the most vital, yet overlooked element of a successful customer experience survey strategy. We often tell our clients to “design with the end in mind,” meaning to think about not just what you want to accomplish tomorrow or even a few months from now, but when you think about your ideal future state of your customer experience, what does it look like? Only then will you be able to accurately identify how to get from point A to point B.
Failure to pinpoint your goals when it comes to survey strategy often looks like sending too many surveys with too many questions, leading to too much data—and therefore, too little intelligence.
That’s why we suggest getting your team together (and maybe including some expert consultants like our Strategic Insights Team) to decide what problem you’re trying to solve or what you’re trying to improve.
For example, are you striving to increase market share? Retain existing customers? Knowing the answers and setting goals right off the bat will help you narrow down the areas to listen (because if you listen everywhere, you end up with a lot of data and no answers).
Step #2: Take a Look at Your Current Customer Feedback Data
Wondering what questions will surely cause survey fatigue? The ones that you should have the answers to already. That’s why it’s so important to take a look at your existing customer data. This can be inferred data (such as customer relationship management data) or internal data (from emails, slack, and the like).
Today, there is no shortage of data. So, why would you want to add even more to your pile when your existing data might already hold the answers you seek?
Using the same example from step one, if you are looking to increase customer retention, you may be able to use inferred/internal data to identify that 30% of your churn is driven by a lack of personalized experiences. That gives you an area in which to take action, all without sending a single survey!
Step #3: Consider Existing External Data
So you’ve decided what you’re trying to achieve and sorted through your existing inferred and internal data. Now what? Next comes the data that already exists, but maybe you don’t have access to it yet.
We are of course referring to indirect data, such as comments and ratings from Glassdoor or other review sites as well as social media comments, credit card and IP targeting data, and the like. The right Experience Improvement partner should be able to help you access this data and the insights it holds.
By leveraging indirect data, you are gaining additional insights from existing customers and employees, but also non-buyers and non-employees. For instance, if you examine Glassdoor data from competitors, you can identify why their job postings are attracting candidates. You can then leverage that data to improve your own postings.
Now You Can Send That Survey!
Still have questions? Great! These are the perfect candidates for sending a quick survey. By following the three preceding steps, you can rest assured that you have exhausted all of your considerable data resources, and can send out a strategic, minimal survey without risking survey fatigue.
Want to learn if your customer experience surveys are the best they could possibly be? Our experts have developed an assessment that allows you to optimize your surveys and make sure that they will provide actionable insights that drive business results! Check out the Survey Assessment
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In the modern consumer-led environment, the customer experience is of paramount importance. Whether you’re offering omnichannel contact center solutions like we do at RingCentral or work in online retail, you must go the extra mile to ensure that your customers enjoy the best possible client experience. Because if you don’t improve customer experience, you can rest assured that your competitors will.
Where once the emphasis might have been on clever publicity schemes or B2B affiliate marketing, now businesses recognize that these methods – though they remain hugely important and valuable—need to be complemented by a laser-like focus on customer experience. Without that focus, you’ll find that consumers explore other options, and take their business where they feel it’s more valued.
Delivering exceptional customer experiences requires a wholehearted commitment across your company. That’s from the most senior management at the top, to the staff dealing directly with customers on the shop floor (or in the call center). It also requires a willingness to ask awkward questions about your own business, and a preparedness to confront – and address – any failings you might identify.
To improve customer experience and make your client encounters the best they can possibly be, you need to ensure that each interaction a consumer has with your business is smooth, consistent, and straightforward. You must also attend to their needs and concerns. Whether you’re showing customers how to record a webinar or helping them find the right furniture for their home, the same fundamental principles apply.
With all this in mind, then, it should be apparent that customer experience is vitally important to scaling a business. But what particular customer experience competencies can boost your business’s growth? This is what we’ll discuss in this guide, but first, we’ll look in more detail at exactly why the customer experience is of such overwhelming importance.
Furthermore, it is important to note that these expectations have changed quite dramatically in a relatively short period of time. The sheer choice available online has made it easier for consumers to shop around and explore alternative options. It’s no longer a matter of competing with businesses in your local vicinity, as there is (almost literally) a world of options out there for people to choose from.
Offering an exceptional customer experience, then, can have all sorts of welcome consequences. As we’ve discussed, it’s essential to ensuring long-term customer loyalty, thereby putting your whole business on a firmer footing. In addition, it also encourages positive word of mouth. Customers promoting your business to their friends and colleagues, and thereby (hopefully) bringing more custom your way.
The most important thing to remember with regard to customer experience is that the power these days lies with the consumer. No longer is it possible to pull the wool over their eyes with sub-standard products and services. The bar has been substantially raised, and this is the reality you must adapt yourself to.
Understanding Customer Expectations
Understanding customer expectations is crucial for businesses seeking to improve customer experience. It begins with identifying customer needs and desires, diving deep into what truly matters to them. By actively listening and gathering feedback, businesses can uncover valuable insights to tailor their products and services accordingly. Recognizing key touchpoints, such as initial contact, purchase, and post-sales support, allows businesses to focus their efforts and resources where it matters most. Mapping the customer journey provides a holistic view of the entire customer experience, enabling businesses to identify pain points and opportunities for improvement. By thoroughly understanding customer expectations, businesses can deliver personalized and exceptional experiences that leave a lasting positive impression.
So, now that we’ve clarified just why customer experience is so vital, we need to discuss the competencies that can transform your business for the better and send its growth soaring into the stratosphere, as well as creating a healthier business environment for everybody involved.
Here are five customer experience competencies which you must be continually focused upon:
1) Prioritize the Customer
It might seem like an obvious point to make, but to deliver the best possible customer experience, you need to genuinely prioritize the needs of the customer. This is of the utmost importance whether you’re promoting a video hosting platform or trying to tempt people to try a new restaurant.
The exact experiences that people expect differ from sector to sector, of course, but prioritizing the customer must remain constant across the board.
Customers need to feel that they are the focus of your attention at all times. They need to feel valued at all times. This needs to involve more than just rhetoric or platitudes. Your plan to improve customer experience must be backed with a plan for action, including the resources necessary to back it up. Set clear metrics and use hard data to measure customer experience management.
2) Be Prepared to Engage
Another point that needs to be kept in mind is that customer engagement is an integral part of delivering exceptional experiences. Consumers these days love to give their opinions, and most of the time they don’t require much prompting to do so. This is something your business has to be properly prepared for. Customer engagement, therefore, needs to be a leading priority for your business.
It’s best to take the initiative yourself. Be proactive in your efforts to seek customers’ opinions, and provide your own outlets where clients can offer them. Of course, people will use social media too, so be alert to any discussion of your business there. Also, when customers provide feedback, listen to it. They may highlight issues of which you were previously unaware, and it’s always frustrating for customers to feel their views aren’t taken seriously.
3) Demonstrate Firm and Open Leadership
Much is often made of the importance of purposeful and strong leadership in business, and there’s little doubt that this can make a huge difference. The value of entrepreneurialism has been proven over many years, from the largest multinational corporations to the smallest mom-and-pop retail outlets. But when it comes to customer experience, business leaders themselves must be prepared to be led by customers.
Business leadership must, therefore, accept the necessity of customer-centric growth. This involves heeding the views of consumers and maintaining an intimate understanding of exactly what they’re looking for. This doesn’t mean following the whims of customers blindly, however. It’s a question of distinguishing the good ideas, ones that can genuinely advance your business, from the fly-by-night suggestions.
4) Get Employee Buy-in
Following on from the previous point, leadership isn’t about dictating from on high and then leaving everybody else to make sense of the latest diktat. If we’re working to improve customer experience, we need to make sure that an ethos of prioritizing the consumer’s needs saturates the whole business. This means that the entire team, from top to bottom, needs to buy into the idea.
Employees must be provided with the resources, tools, and training they need to provide customers with outstanding experiences. They could be helping a customer find the perfect holiday gift or undertaking a Google Analytics health check for a client. Either way, they need to be supported and encouraged in their efforts to enhance customer experiences.
5) Build Strong Brand Values
We’ve touched upon the importance of having a clear and compelling ethos. This also needs to inform the general values of your brand. You have to remember that customers will hold you accountable if your business, its products, and services don’t live up to the various values you espouse. Whether it be a commitment to attentive customer service, unbeatable value for money, or simply a pledge of consistent quality in all areas.
Also, it’s crucial that your values aren’t just hot air. They have to relate in a concrete way to what your business is doing. Your team must understand how the work they do ties into the broader values your business has articulated. It’s not enough to reel off some superficial platitudes and then try to present these as a mission statement. They have to actually mean something, and what’s more, they have to be seen to mean something by customers.
6) Designing Intuitive User Interfaces
Designing intuitive user interfaces is essential for creating a seamless and satisfying digital customer experience. One key aspect is simplifying website navigation, ensuring that users can effortlessly find the information or products they are looking for. By organizing content in a logical and user-friendly manner, businesses can reduce frustration and improve engagement, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates.
Optimizing mobile responsiveness is another crucial element in today’s mobile-centric world. With more users accessing websites through smartphones and tablets, it is imperative to provide a seamless and enjoyable mobile experience. Responsive design ensures that websites adapt to different screen sizes and resolutions, allowing users to easily navigate and interact with the content. By prioritizing mobile responsiveness, businesses can cater to the needs and preferences of their mobile users, enhancing their overall satisfaction.
Streamlining the checkout and conversion processes is vital for minimizing cart abandonment and maximizing conversions. Long and complex checkout procedures often deter users from completing their purchase. By simplifying the steps, minimizing form fields, and offering convenient payment options, businesses can create a frictionless experience that encourages users to convert. Streamlining the conversion process not only improves the user experience but also increases the likelihood of repeat purchases and fosters customer loyalty.
Measuring and Analyzing Customer Experience
Measuring and analyzing customer experience is vital for businesses to understand and enhance their interactions with customers. Key metrics serve as valuable indicators of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES) provide quantitative insights into the overall customer experience. Collecting and analyzing customer feedback through surveys, reviews, and social media monitoring allows businesses to gain qualitative insights into customer perceptions and identify areas for improvement. By actively listening to customers, businesses can address their pain points and meet their expectations more effectively. Additionally, utilizing customer journey analytics provides a holistic view of the customer’s end-to-end experience across multiple touchpoints. This helps businesses identify moments of friction or delight along the customer journey, enabling them to optimize each stage and enhance the overall experience. By measuring and analyzing customer experience, businesses can make data-driven decisions, implement targeted improvements, and ultimately deliver a more personalized and satisfying experience that fosters customer loyalty and drives business growth.
Conclusion
It’s very easy to tell customers how important they are and how concerned you are to ensure their happiness. There’s scarcely a business in the world that doesn’t tell its customers how important they are, and how valued their opinions are, and so on. But far fewer businesses actually uphold standards like these. The crucial test for your business is to prove to customers that their welfare and satisfaction is your number one concern.
That said, if you can prove your sincerity, then improving the customer experience is the natural result. After all, when clients know that you are on their side, then they’re likely to be much more willing to work with you to optimize all aspects of your business.
In this guide, we’ve listed some of the core competencies which your business will need if it is to make these commitments into an everyday reality. Of course, the exact steps your business has to take to improve customer experience will vary according to a number of factors. They include the resources at its disposal, what competitors are offering, the sector it’s competing in, and so on.
You should also remember that your focus will inevitably change as your business prospers and expands. Nevertheless, you must redouble your efforts to ensure that your customers remain at the heart of what you do, and that you don’t lose sight of your original mission and purpose.
John Allen is Director, Global SEO at RingCentral, a global UCaaS, VoIP, and cti software provider. He has over 14 years of experience and an extensive background in building and optimizing digital marketing programs. RingCentral is a Wootric customer.
