What Is Contact Center Automation?

Contact center automation is the process of using AI-enabled software to automate repetitive tasks. It leverages technology like automatic call distribution (ACD) and real-time transcription to reduce the manual workload for agents. As a result, agents can focus on strengthening customer relationships with a personalized and empathetic approach.

Automation empowers businesses to boost operational efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, and reduce costs. For example, a call transcription tool prevents the need to listen to lengthy recordings and provides quick insight into customer experiences. These insights ensure agents don’t miss out on valuable information they can use to satisfy and retain clients.

Businesses looking to increase their contact center ROI should invest in automation. It enhances the customer-centric approach without adding excessive strain on agents and managers.

What Are the Benefits of Contact Center Automation?

Contact center automation offers the following benefits to businesses:

• It improves agent productivity and satisfaction. Automation reduces repetitive tasks, allowing agents to focus on complex customer queries. Tools like real-time call transcriptions provide agents with the information they need for quick and effective issue resolution.
• It increases sales and conversions. Automation helps identify upselling and cross-selling opportunities by analyzing customer behavior. Personalized interactions help drive revenue growth by fulfilling customer needs and converting prospects.
• It helps reduce contact center costs. Automating repetitive tasks like call routing and data entry enables call center cost reduction for businesses. It addresses bottlenecks to enable smoother workflows and prevents the need for additional staffing during peak times.
• It boosts customer satisfaction. Automation speeds up resolution times, provides accurate responses, and ensures 24/7 availability for inquiries. These positive results support seamless interactions that satisfy customer needs.

How Does Contact Center Automation Work?

1. Data Collection and Integration
2. Natural Language Processing
3. Response Generation
4. Continuous Improvement

Contact center automation is a structured pipeline integrating AI-powered tools to streamline operations. Here are the key stages of a typical automation workflow:

Data Collection and Integration

The first step is to collect and connect customer data from various channels. Companies leveraging omnichannel engagement retain 89% of their customers. Therefore, it’s essential to enable customer input from every relevant source.

This approach provides a comprehensive view of the customer experience in one place. As a result, when a customer calls, the system can instantly access details like purchase history to help the agent prepare a personalized response.

Natural Language Processing

The next stage involves analyzing customer input using natural language processing (NLP). The goal is to use machine learning to understand the customer’s intent, emotions, and expectations. 

For example, sentiment analysis is an NLP algorithm that categorizes feedback as positive, neutral, or negative. This categorization provides insights into customer behavior and helps filter out disgruntled profiles for a targeted approach.

Response Generation

Automation tools can also help with response generation once feedback analysis is complete. Chatbots and virtual assistants rely on their knowledge bases to respond to or escalate customer queries. 

Continuous Improvement

AI-enabled customer experience automation learns from interactions to improve over time. It analyzes past conversations, highlighting patterns and areas for improvement. These insights help enhance response frameworks, algorithms, and workflows to boost satisfaction.

For example, a chatbot can update its knowledge base after encountering a new query. This process enables it to better serve customers with similar issues in the future. This stage ensures that the automation pipeline evolves with customer needs. As a result, contact centers succeed in reducing errors and boosting efficiency.

Types of Contact Center Automation

• IVR and IVAs
• Forecasting and scheduling
• Workflow automation
• Live agent assistance
• Auto dialer

Businesses can use various forms of automation to improve the contact center experience. Key types include:

IVR and IVAs

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is an automated system that replies to incoming calls with a pre-recorded menu. If you’ve ever called a business and heard “Press 1 for Complaints,” you’ve encountered an IVR. It works by greeting the customer with a menu and then accepting their input via keypad or voice before taking the appropriate action. 

IVR frees up time for agents by handling common queries, announcing updates, routing callers to the right agents, and offering basic support.

Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) are AI-powered chat assistants that can have context-aware conversations with customers. As a result, they can resolve customer queries without requiring agent intervention. 

Traditional virtual agents are limited to responses from their pre-defined scripts. Intelligent agents, on the other hand, use AI to learn from customer interactions and maintain a natural dialogue with intuitive responses. 

Forecasting and Scheduling

Forecasting and scheduling tools help contact centers predict call volume and optimize staffing accordingly. They analyze historical data, trends, and real-time metrics to forecast customer demand accurately.

For example, a retail contact center could use forecasting to prepare for a high volume of inquiries and complaints during the festive shopping season. This analysis enables it to create schedules for agents who can approve or request modifications.

This automation ensures the right number and type of agents are available at the right time. It contributes to contact center optimization by reducing managers’ workloads and customer wait times.

Workflow Automation

Workflow automation streamlines repetitive tasks to free up agents for more complex interactions. It automates tasks such as call routing, follow-up reminders, and data entry to reduce human error and improve operational efficiency.

For example, when a customer submits a service request, workflow automation routes the ticket to the appropriate department based on the inquiry type. This automatic routing enables faster resolution without requiring unnecessary agent involvement.

Live Agent Assistance

Live agent assistance tools use machine learning to support agents during customer interactions. They provide real-time insights through live call transcripts and sentiment scores. 

This information helps agents provide effective responses by monitoring customer expectations and feelings. It also helps managers capture a comprehensive view of agent performance and customer experiences. For example, they can receive notifications for changes in key call center metrics to make informed decisions.

Auto Dialer

An auto dialer is an automated system that dials customer numbers from a predefined list. It detects who or what is receiving the outgoing call and connects agents only when a human answers it. If the system detects a busy signal, disconnect number, or voicemail, it hangs up or leaves a pre-recorded message. 

As a result, auto dialers eliminate the time agents spend manually dialing numbers or dealing with unanswered calls. Advanced auto dialers can even analyze customer behavior data to prioritize calls for better engagement.

What to Look for in Contact Center Automation Software

1. Text and Speech Analytics
2. Integrations
3. Reporting
4. Customizable Alerts

The right contact center automation software boosts agent productivity and customer satisfaction. It leverages AI, automation workflows, and customer data to optimize contact centers. Key features to look for include:

Text and Speech Analytics

Understanding customer sentiment is essential, but doing so manually is time-consuming. Text and speech analytics use machine learning to provide instant insights into emotions, context, and intent. As a result, agents can quickly identify pain points and opportunities for improvement based on customer feedback.

Integrations

Your automation software should offer integrations with existing systems. For example, it should be able to access data from your help desk system, CRM software, and feedback collection tools. These integrations ensure your agents have everything they need in one place to serve customer needs.

Reporting

The right contact center automation tool should offer customizable reports for tracking key metrics like Average Handle Time (AHT) and First Contact Resolution (FCR). These reports use charts, graphs, and summaries to visualize for stakeholders. Features like filtering and trend analysis provide a better understanding of agent performance and customer behavior.

Customizable Alerts

Alerts and notifications help take immediate action to improve experiences. The right software should provide real-time alerts about customer sentiment and CX metrics. This feature keeps agents and managers in the loop, ensuring they don’t miss out on urgent situations and insights.

Best Practices for Contact Center Automation

You must follow a strategic approach to implement contact center automation for your business. Here are a few best practices to consider:

1. Define Objectives
2. Understand Your Audience
3. Track Key Metrics
4. Always Offer a Live Agent Option
5. Choose the Right Software

Define Objectives

Set clear and measurable goals for your automation efforts. Think about the exact problem you want to solve. For example, if you want to reduce your average call handle time without compromising customer satisfaction, automation can help improve agent efficiency. Real-time call transcription can provide a good understanding of customer expectations without requiring lengthy live calls or recordings.

Understand Your Audience

Knowing your audience is a great way to generate maximum impact with automation. Use demographic data, customer preferences, and insights from previous interactions to train AI tools. For example, understanding your customers’ preferred communication style will ensure more natural and effective dialogue for frictionless experiences.

Track Key Metrics

Monitor critical metrics such as CSAT and call resolution rates to evaluate your automation software’s performance. Leverage predictive analytics to track future trends in key metrics and proactively address issues before they escalate. Test and refine workflows to remove bottlenecks if your metrics start trending downward.

Always Offer a Live Agent Option

The best contact center experience involves a combination of AI and human touch. Always provide customers with the option to connect with a live agent. For example, an IVR system should route customers to a live agent if the pre-recorded answers are insufficient. Allow customers to request a callback if no agents are currently unavailable. This approach to issue resolution is key for preventing customer frustration.

Choose the Right Software

Selecting the right automation platform is crucial for delivering exceptional experiences. Start by understanding your goals, audience, and operational bottlenecks. Then, consider which features would have the greatest impact on your business. 

For instance, a company extracted actionable insights from volumes of customer feedback with Pearl-Plaza’s Smart Summary solution. As a result, it was able to take immediate and effective action that helped protect over $15M in revenue at risk. 

As you can see, the right software can significantly boost your bottom line. Look for platforms featuring real-time reporting, text analytics, and seamless integrations to optimize workflows.

Fill out the calculator below to see how much ROI your organization could realize from utilizing Pearl-Plaza’s platform:

Calculate your business’s ROI using Pearl-Plaza’s conversational intelligence tools.

Industry

Please Select Automotive Entertainment Financial Services Healthcare Hospitality Insurance Retail All

Number of calls per year

Number of agents

Average call duration in minutes

Percent of calls where issue is not resolved (%)

Agent time spent per call in minutes

Percent of calls reviewed by supervisors (%)

Currency

USD ($) EUR (€) GBP (£) AUD ($) NZD ($) SGD ($) PHP (₱)

Estimated Revenue Growth

Use the calculator to find an estimated ROI

Total ICX ROI

Submit two or more calculators to show an overview of what your integrated CX program could return.

Pearl-Plaza Helps You Unlock More Insight from Your Data — Starting Right Now.

Whether you are curious about other programs/ROIs, want to gain a better understanding of options in the market, or are insight-obsessed like us, you can gain unlimited access to all of our valuable calculators by simply entering your email. You’ll also unlock valuable customer experience analytics resources, articles, and other tools to help you quickly elevate your CX program and grow your business.

Contact Center Automation Challenges

• Customer Trust
• Lack of Personalization
• Compliance

Contact center automation offers several benefits, but it’s not without its challenges. Businesses should be aware of the following obstacles when implementing automation:

Customer Trust

Automation is great for contact center productivity, but it can’t replace the human touch. In fact, it can even leave customers feeling unheard, especially if their queries are complex or emotional. Trust can erode when customers feel they only interact with bots instead of receiving human support. It’s essential to provide readily available live agent support when automation alone can’t meet customer expectations.

Lack of Personalization

Traditional automation tools struggle to deliver personalized experiences. Without machine learning algorithms that learn from customer feedback and data, these tools tend to provide generic responses. 

This lack of personalization can frustrate users and fail to resolve specific needs. Businesses should leverage conversational analytics, generative AI, and human input to tailor responses based on customer history and profiles.

Compliance

Automation tools must comply with industry regulations and data privacy laws. Mishandling sensitive customer data can have legal and financial consequences. Conduct regular audits and invest in secure integrations to ensure your systems stay compliant while protecting customer information.

How Foot Locker Uses Contact Center Automation

AI-enabled automation unlocks opportunities to improve customer experiences for business gains. An excellent example of leveraging automation comes from leading footwear and sportswear retailer Foot Locker. 

The retailer was collecting healthy volumes of feedback through channels such as email, call center logs, and social media. However, it needed help organizing this multi-channel data in one place and extracting meaningful insights.

Its partnership with Pearl-Plaza enabled it to leverage Spotlight, an award-winning tool for analyzing textual feedback. Developed by Lexalytics, an Pearl-Plaza company, Spotlight supports Foot Locker by automatically categorizing customer inquiries. It captures key topics, themes, and intent from feedback to highlight pain points and opportunities.

The retailer can customize the text analytics tool to suit its business needs. For example, it modifies the feedback tagging process to focus on the most relevant categories in queries. Spotlight also removes all personal identifiable information (PII) when analyzing feedback to maintain privacy. It enables the CX team to tag the information back to the original ticket to pinpoint the exact customer for personal outreach.

As a result of advanced NLP and text analytics, Foot Locker now has a unified view of feedback for actionable insights. This automation saves valuable time for staff and makes it easier to identify, retain, and satisfy dissatisfied customers.

Utilize Contact Center Automation with Pearl-Plaza

Contact center automation performs the analytical heavy lifting so your agents can focus on delivering personalized customer service. It helps reduce operational costs while boosting the value of your customer-centric approach. Take a product tour today to see how Pearl-Plaza can help implement automation to make the most of your contact center!

As your company begins to scale customer experience operations, it is possible for silos that cause different departments to use separate technologies and focus on different metrics, which fragments your understanding of the customer experience. 

To avoid this problem, you need a customer experience manager to break down silos, unify your tech stack, and unite your directors, VPs, and business units with the ultimate goal of creating a friction-free, productive, and delightful customer experience—from onboarding to renewal and advocacy. 

What Is a Customer Experience Manager (CX Manager)?

A customer experience manager determines, implements, and refines the customer experience strategy to ensure that all customer interactions with a company are seamless, satisfying, and aligned with the organization’s values. 

Another important aspect of this role is that it determines the best way to collect, analyze, and act on the voice of customer data at key touchpoints across the customer journey. 

Benefits of Having A Customer Experience Manager

Employing a dedicated customer experience manager can profoundly enhance your organization by providing a singular leadership point for the entire customer experience program. This role ensures that all initiatives to improve customer satisfaction are strategically aligned and executed efficiently across various departments. 

A skilled customer experience manager not only fosters collaboration among teams but also takes charge of managing personnel and allocating resources wisely. By streamlining processes and integrating diverse strategies, this leader plays a pivotal role in driving both operational efficiency and sustainable growth, ultimately creating a more cohesive and impactful customer journey.

What Background Should a CX Manager Have?

It is common to see a wide range of candidates succeed in the role of CX manager—from Salesforce Administrators to Senior Sales Operations professionals to Customer Success or Customer Experience/Voice of the Customer leaders. Even marketing professionals have successfully led CX operations efforts.

It makes sense that effective CX professionals would come from different backgrounds since this role is about as cross-functional as it gets. We can tell you that certain qualities and skill sets, rather than specific career trajectories, predict success in this role. 

Key Skills and Traits of a Successful CX Manager

Customer experience managers will not all share the same background. Some customer experience managers will have marketing experience, others will have sales experience, etc. However, all successful customer experience managers share the same traits that make them successful leaders of customer experience initiatives. Some of these skills include: 

• Diplomacy and negotiation skills
• Tech literacy
• Project management mastery
• Understanding of procurement

Diplomacy and Negotiation Skills

A customer experience manager needs to have excellent interpersonal skills and be able to balance all the stakeholders’ needs and achieve goals with their available resources. They’ll need to convince a range of departments—not just the customer-facing ones—just how vital these efforts are to the company’s long-term success. 

A CX manager will lead team meetings, communicate strategies, and move projects forward while holding everyone to a timeline (including executives). On top of that, they must obtain a clear mandate and buy-in from their C-suite sponsors. This is especially important, as only 51% of customer experience decision-makers who state that improving the customer experience is a priority for their executives said that those executives act like CX is important most or all of the time

Tech Literacy

Your various technology platforms need to work together as a system. Otherwise, your information silos stay intact and your customer journey remains fragmented. 

On top of that, they’ll need to find the gaps in your current capabilities and identify solutions to fill them. Sometimes, this involves purchasing entirely new systems. Other times, it’s simply a matter of integrating what you’re currently working on. Usually, it’s a bit of both.

Pearl-Plaza’s CX integrations seamlessly integrate with over 100 enterprise systems to ensure you have a holistic and unified view of the customer experience data to make better business decisions. 

Project Management Mastery

Your customer experience manager will need excellent project management skills, including planning timelines and budgets end-to-end and getting personnel to stick to them. They also need to know how to purchase from vendors without using an RFP.

A Strong Understanding of Procurement

Executives have grown wary of new B2B software that promises to solve all their problems, and middle management is rarely overjoyed at the prospect of retraining staff on new platforms. That said, sometimes the current systems don’t cut it, and it’s up to the CX manager to understand the tradeoffs when evaluating new technology and delivering an integrated system that gets the job done.

How to Hire a High-Impact CX Manager

If you want a customer experience manager that will truly revolutionize the customer experience at your organization and be able to tie those improvements to business success, you are going to need to make sure you conduct a hiring process that will yield the highest-performing professionals. Here are some steps to follow that will help you hire a high-impact customer experience manager: 

1. Define the Role: 

One of the most important parts of the hiring process is to make sure that it gets started the right way. When you are looking for a CX manager, clarify what you are looking for and what they will be in charge of. 

Are you hiring a CX manager to start your customer experience from scratch? Are they taking over a pre-existing business unit? What kind of results do you expect from a successful customer experience manager? These questions ensure that applicants are educated on the role from the beginning and eliminate misunderstandings later in the hiring process. 

2. Look for Someone Who Understands the Customer

Whoever you choose as your customer experience manager should have a strong understanding of the modern consumer and the experiences they are looking to have. The ideal candidate understands that only a fraction of customer feedback comes from surveys and that an effective customer experience program will source customer feedback from multiple sources in order to tap into the 85% of customer feedback that is unstructured. 

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3. Can Tie CX to Business Performance

One of the biggest challenges for customer experience professionals is to tie customer experience business improvements with business performance improvements. In the current business environment, this is a crucial skill. Regardless of their background, your chosen candidate should have experience with this to ensure that you can measure the ROI of your CX program. 

4. Assess Cultural Fit

Your customer experience manager will be responsible for communicating across your organization, whether it be executives or associates. Since the CX manager will touch many departments, it is important to take the time to ensure that they are also a cultural fit for your company. This will make the adoption and execution of customer experience initiatives a lot smoother. 

5. Understand the Importance of the Agent/Customer Interaction

One of the most important parts of the customer journey is the experience that the customer has with a contact center or customer support team. 78% of customers prefer to contact customer support through online chat or voice calls. Furthermore, 76% of customers get frustrated when they do not receive a personalized experience. 

It is important to hire a customer experience manager that understands the weight the contact center holds in regard to the entire customer experience and empowers the organization to invest in solutions that will meet customer expectations. 

Tools and Technology for CX Managers

For your customer experience manager to be successful, they need to be equipped with tools that give them the best insights into the state of the customer experience at your organization. These include, but are not limited to, CRM systems, analytics platforms, collaboration tools, and customer feedback platforms. 

The most important of these tools is a customer experience platform. A customer experience platform helps you connect data from multiple sources to get a holistic view of how customers view their interactions with your organization. 

Pearl-Plaza’s customer experience solution is the premier choice for successful customer experience managers as it combines up to six different solutions, such as conversation intelligence, customer experience surveys, digital listening, reputation management, and more! 

How to Measure the Success of a Customer Experience Manager

There are multiple ways to measure the success of your customer experience manager to understand the impact they are having at your organization. The three main categories of metrics you can use are: 

• Customer Experience Metrics
• Operational Metrics 
• Business Impact

Customer Experience Metrics

To measure the success of your customer experience manager, you will need to benchmark their performance against the customer experience metrics that were agreed upon early on in the hiring process. These can include:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
• Customer Effort Score (CES) 

These metrics can reflect the changes in how the customers perceive their experience. For example, an increase in customer satisfaction in the six to twelve months of a customer experience manager’s time with your organization means the changes and initiatives they have implemented have resulted in a more positive customer experience.  

Operational Metrics

Operational metrics are metrics that reflect the processes within your organization. To measure the performance of your customer experience manager using these metrics, you can compare CX efforts against: 

• Resolution time
• Average time in queue  
• Conversion rate

These metrics reflect the smoothness of operations in your organization or in a specific business unit. For example, the average time in queue and resolution time are often used as call center metrics. A higher resolution time and a lower average time waiting to talk to an agent means that customers have better experiences.  

Business Impact

Perhaps most importantly, you will want to measure how your customer experience manager demonstrates the ROI of CX initiatives through their tangible business impact. This can be done using metrics such as: 

• Average order size
• Customer churn rate
• Cost per conversion (CPC) 

These metrics help measure the ROI of CX initiatives. Using the right tools, you can gauge the financial impact that a successful customer experience program is having on your business. 

Fill out the calculator below to see the ROI you could get from utilizing Pearl-Plaza’s customer experience platform: 

Calculate your business’s ROI using Pearl-Plaza’s VoC tools.

Industry

Please Select Automotive Entertainment Financial Services Healthcare Hospitality Insurance Retail All

Number of Customers

Annual Revenue per Customer ($)

Annual Churn Rate (%)

Number of Promoters

Lead to Conversion Rate (%)

Number of calls per year

Percent of calls where issue is not resolved (%)

Currency

USD ($) EUR (€) GBP (£) AUD ($) NZD ($) SGD ($) PHP (₱)

Estimated Revenue Growth

Use the calculator to find an estimated ROI

Total ICX ROI

Submit two or more calculators to show an overview of what your integrated CX program could return.

Pearl-Plaza Helps You Unlock More Insight from Your Data — Starting Right Now.

Whether you are curious about other programs/ROIs, want to gain a better understanding of options in the market, or are insight-obsessed like us, you can gain unlimited access to all of our valuable calculators by simply entering your email. You’ll also unlock valuable customer experience analytics resources, articles, and other tools to help you quickly elevate your CX program and grow your business.

Empower Your Customer Experience Manager with Pearl-Plaza

A successful CX Manager doesn’t just improve customer experience—they drive meaningful, measurable business growth by putting customers at the heart of every decision. Schedule a demo today to see how Pearl-Plaza’s platform can set your customer experience manager up for success! 

What Is A Call Center Dashboard?

A call center dashboard is a centralized digital interface providing real-time insights into call center performance. It enables call center management to monitor and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) like call volume, agent effort score, and peak-hour traffic.

The dashboard visualizes these metrics on a unified platform to provide insight into agent and call center performance. As a result, teams can make informed decisions on improving customer relationships and resolving issues.

Call Center Dashboard vs Contact Center Dashboard

A call center dashboard tracks performance by focusing on phone-based interactions. On the other hand, a contact center dashboard covers multiple communication channels, including phone, SMS, email, chat, and social media.

• Call Center Dashboard: This dashboard is ideal for businesses handling a high volume of phone calls. It monitors metrics like average talk time, call availability, and cost per call.

• Contact Center Dashboard: This dashboard is ideal for teams processing customer interactions across multiple channels. It tracks KPIs like chat response times, email resolution rates, and social media engagement.

Both types of dashboards focus on conversation intelligence but serve different needs. Businesses relying on call centers to drive sales and strengthen relationships should invest in a call center dashboard.

What Is A Call Center Dashboard Used For?

1. Monitoring Real-Time Performance
2. Tracking Call Center Metrics
3. Identifying Trends

A call center dashboard is crucial to managing and improving call center operations. It provides real-time visibility into KPIs, empowering teams to improve efficiency and customer experiences. Primary uses of the dashboard include:

1. Monitoring Real-Time Performance

A dashboard provides live data on aspects like call availability and agent efficiency. This real-time data collection enables immediate improvements where necessary. For example, if the dashboard indicates a spike in call volume with long wait times, managers can reallocate agents or hire additional staff to manage the load.

2. Tracking Call Center Metrics

Businesses can track call center metrics to ensure teams are meeting their objectives. It provides rich insight into areas of improvement in the customer experience.

For example, the Average Handle Time (AHT) metric indicates how long it takes to complete a single call. While a high AHT is not ideal, a low AHT isn’t great if it compromises service quality.

If your agents complete a call in record time but fail to satisfy the customer, it will hurt your business. A significant challenge with short calls is capturing relevant information quickly and accurately. 

3. Identifying Trends

Dashboards allow call center managers to uncover trends in customer expectations. It visualizes how certain metrics change over time to help teams make informed decisions. 

For example, an upward trend in Average Time in Queue (ATQ) suggests the staff struggles to minimize customer wait times. Recognizing patterns like these helps optimize performance, staffing, and call center strategies.

Benefits of a Call Center Dashboard

A call center dashboard streamlines the process of measuring agent performance and customer experiences. Here are a few key benefits for businesses:

• It reveals bottlenecks affecting customer service. A dashboard helps identify inefficiencies like frequent repeat calls or long wait times. Uncovering these bottlenecks is key to smoother experiences that drive sales.
• It highlights areas of improvement. Metrics on agent productivity and customer experiences help address weaknesses. These insights inform training programs and guide resource allocation for better customer service.
• It helps agents and managers track performance. Dashboards visualize call center performance in real-time. Agents can use this information to set goals and motivate themselves. Managers can use the insights to make informed decisions on agent training and resource allocation.
• It improves customer experiences. The analytical insights help improve customer satisfaction and retention. For example, if customers frequently complain about long wait times, managers can quickly adjust staffing or implement self-service options.

Types of Contact Center Dashboards

1. Agent Performance
2. Manager
3. Customer Experience
4. Operational
5. Financial

There are various types of dashboards to help businesses optimize contact center workflow. Here’s a look at four key types, each serving a distinct purpose:

Agent Performance

Agent performance dashboards provide real-time insights into individual performance metrics. These metrics include Average Handle Time (AHT), First Call Resolution (FCR), transfer rate, and wrap-up time.

The main goal of these dashboards is to monitor trends in agent performance. This process helps managers identify opportunities for improvement to train staff accordingly. Agents can also use this information to set goals and motivate themselves to deliver better experiences.

Manager

Manager dashboards provide strategic insights to team leads and executives to improve long-term performance. They track key metrics like agent effort score (AES), call volume, quality assurance, and agent productivity. 

Managers use this information to understand the current state of the call center and where they can improve it. For example, the insights prove helpful in resource allocation and agent training.

Customer Experience

Customer Experience (CX) dashboards focus on the customer’s interaction with the call center. They monitor customer experience KPIs like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), and resolution time.

These dashboards enable CX teams to identify and resolve customer pain points with a data-driven approach. As a result, they gain actionable insights into boosting customer retention and loyalty.

Operational

Operational dashboards highlight the health and efficiency of regular call center activities. They track and visualize metrics like call abandonment rate, peak-hour traffic, and average speed of answer (ASA).

Managers use the insights from these dashboards to streamline call center workflows by identifying bottlenecks. For example, a high ASA indicates that the current staff struggles to handle the call volume effectively.

Financial

Financial dashboards help finance teams understand the impact of call center activities on business outcomes. They monitor metrics like cost per call (CPC) and revenue per interaction to determine the call center’s return on investment (Rter. For example, a high CPC indicates the need to adjust operations for higher profitability.

Features to Look for in Contact Center Dashboards

1. Omnichannel Communication
2. Sentiment Analysis
3. Real-Time Call Transcriptions
4. Integrations with Software Systems
5. Visualization & Reporting

Managing your contact center experience can be overwhelming. However, the right contact center dashboard saves you several hours’ worth of time and effort by giving you a unified view of the entire workflow. Key features to look for include:

Omnichannel Communication

While phone calls are traditional channels for contacting customer support, other channels are quickly growing in popularity. 67% of customers prefer using live chat, social media, and texting to reach support teams. Unsurprisingly, 36% of Gen-Z customers are happy to use social media platforms for simple inquiries. As a result, modern contact centers should leverage data from multiple channels to increase satisfaction rates.

Call Transcriptions

There is only so much information your agents can capture in a single call. They have to understand the complaint, the customer’s emotions, the steps they have already taken, and so on. Additionally, each agent has to quickly handle multiple calls, making the task even more daunting.

The ability to transcribe phone conversations is crucial for contact centers. Call transcription tools record calls in textual format for easier analysis. These transcripts help identify customer trends and areas of improvement in agent performance. 

Instead of listening to a call recording all over again, you can save valuable time by skimming through a handy transcript. Unfortunately, most transcripts suffer from AI hallucinations, where a transcription tool generates random phrases when it encounters a pause in the audio conversation.

Pearl-Plaza Advanced AI solves this problem by detecting and removing pauses in audio files. This pre-processing step enables it to generate a complete and accurate call transcript. As a result, you can better understand the interaction and make informed decisions.

“Pearl-Plaza’s AI technologies have helped the team better identify root cause and issues by unlocking the power of call and chat transcripts to see what customers are saying in their unsolicited feedback. The increased understanding leads to more call deflection and process improvement to reduce the number of calls to the customer support team.”

– Tyler Saxey, Director Customer Experience, Foot Locker

Sentiment Analysis

Beyond understanding the agent-customer interaction, it’s also useful to understand customer sentiment. This is where we can identify another benefit of real-time transcription: the ability to analyze customer emotions and intent.

Integrations with Software Systems

Your tool of choice should be able to integrate with the rest of your contact center infrastructure. For example, it should provide integrations with your ticketing system, CRM software, and communication channels. These integrations ensure a smooth experience for agents by providing instant access to relevant customer and experience data.

Visualization & Reporting

A suitable contact center dashboard should be able to visualize CX and agent metrics. It should provide easy-to-understand reports featuring engaging visuals to inform stakeholders. Clear and concise reports help you quickly identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.

How to Set Up A Call Center Dashboard

1. Decide what you want to track.
2. Select the right vendor.
3. Implement the dashboard.
4. Train your staff.
5. Monitor and adjust.

Set up a call center dashboard for smooth and efficient workflow using the following steps:

Decide What You Want to Track

Start by identifying the key metrics that align with your call center goals. For example, FCR highlights the percentage of issues your agents resolve in a single call. As a result, it’s a valuable metric to track if you want to improve customer loyalty and agent efficiency. Recognize what matters most to your operations to align the dashboard with these priorities.

Select the Right Vendor

It’s essential to select the right vendor to build an effective call center dashboard. Look for a platform offering:

• Call transcription
• Sentiment analysis
• Customizable reports
• Integration with existing systems

Pearl-Plaza offers a comprehensive contact center tool combining advanced analytics, accurate transcriptions, and multiple integrations. These features are valuable for elevating call center operations and improving their ROI. See what kind of ROI you can get with Pearl-Plaza’s conversational intelligence tools by filling out the calculator below!

Calculate your business’s ROI using Pearl-Plaza’s conversational intelligence tools.

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Please Select Automotive Entertainment Financial Services Healthcare Hospitality Insurance Retail All

Number of calls per year

Number of agents

Average call duration in minutes

Percent of calls where issue is not resolved (%)

Agent time spent per call in minutes

Percent of calls reviewed by supervisors (%)

Currency

USD ($) EUR (€) GBP (£) AUD ($) NZD ($) SGD ($) PHP (₱)

Estimated Revenue Growth

Use the calculator to find an estimated ROI

Total ICX ROI

Submit two or more calculators to show an overview of what your integrated CX program could return.

Pearl-Plaza Helps You Unlock More Insight from Your Data — Starting Right Now.

Whether you are curious about other programs/ROIs, want to gain a better understanding of options in the market, or are insight-obsessed like us, you can gain unlimited access to all of our valuable calculators by simply entering your email. You’ll also unlock valuable customer experience analytics resources, articles, and other tools to help you quickly elevate your CX program and grow your business.

Implement the Dashboard

Work with your vendor to integrate the dashboard into your current systems. Start by establishing data channels that allow the dashboard to collect information from call logs, feedback tools, and CRM software. Set up notifications for key metrics and labels like repeat call rate and negative sentiment. Customize the dashboard to ensure the interface is as helpful as possible for agents and managers.

Train Your Staff

Train your agents to make the most of your advanced dashboard. Provide the team with the necessary skills and knowledge to leverage the dashboard’s features. The training should focus on interpreting key metrics, using real-time data, and identifying bottlenecks to improve productivity.

Monitor and Adjust 

Your work isn’t complete even when the dashboard is operational. It’s now essential to regularly review its performance for continuous improvement. A good practice is to gather feedback from agents to identify issues with the technology. Adjust the dashboard when necessary to reflect evolving business goals and priorities.

Tips for An Effective Contact Center Dashboard

1. Customize the dashboard.
2. Filter and drill down for better insights.
3. Set up alerts and notifications.
4. Review and update metrics.

The following tips will help you maintain an effective contact center dashboard to deliver better experiences:

Customize the Dashboard

Start by integrating your brand’s themes and colors to create a cohesive visual identity. Organize the layout to highlight the most relevant metrics to your operation. 

Use widgets and visual elements like charts to interpret metrics at a glance. You can also enable role-specific customizations. For example, agents require an interface with real-time CX metrics, while managers also need to see agent performance KPIs.

Filter and Drill Down for Better Insights

Filters are simple but powerful tools for effective monitoring and analysis. For example, you can filter out all customer interactions carried out by an agent to track individual performance. Useful filters include complaint type, timeframe, channel type, and customer sentiment. Leverage drill-down features to explore metrics in greater depth, including trends and causes.

Set Up Alerts and Notifications

Real-time alerts ensure you never miss out on key insights. Set up notifications for metrics like call abandonment rates and CSAT to address issues before they escalate. You can customize alerts based on roles so that agents and managers get relevant updates.

Review and Update Metrics

Business priorities and customer needs evolve. Your dashboard should reflect these changes. For example, if your business shifts its focus to omnichannel support, you should add metrics for chat response times or social media interactions.

A good practice is to conduct periodic reviews and collect feedback from team members. This approach helps ensure you’re tracking relevant metrics for business growth.

Leverage Pearl-Plaza In Your Contact Center

Your contact center is a valuable asset that plays a massive role in shaping your reputation. It can be the difference between disgruntled customers and loyal brand advocates. Pearl-Plaza’s industry-recognized contact center dashboard helps optimize agent performance and enhance customer experiences. Take a product tour today to see how you can gain analytical insight into agent-customer interactions!

With the right strategies and tools, you can prevent customers from taking their business elsewhere. The key is to build trust and loyalty through positive experiences that convert potential losses into growth opportunities.

The Importance of Reducing Customer Churn

A customer-centric approach can’t succeed without addressing customer churn. High churn rates indicate dissatisfaction and missed opportunities to strengthen relationships. Here are a few reasons why reducing churn is essential for business gains:

• It increases revenue stability: Retaining customers ensures a steady revenue stream, helping you minimize acquisition costs.
• It boosts Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Loyal customers spend more over time, creating a positive impact on your bottom line.
• It encourages product improvement: When you address churn, you can identify specific pain points leading to dissatisfaction. This information guides product development to better fulfill customer needs and goals.
• It gives you a competitive advantage: Your product and business improvements will likely enhance customer satisfaction. As a result, you’ll succeed in retaining and acquiring customers to increase your market share.
• It improves your brand image: Happy customers are more likely to recommend your business, helping support brand reputation management efforts.

What Is Customer Churn?

Customer churn occurs when customers stop using your product or cancel their subscriptions. It’s an important metric to track because it highlights the number of customers leaving you. You can calculate it by dividing the number of customers you lost over a specific period by the number of active customers at the start of that period.

Types of Customer Churn

Several types of churn can affect your bottom line, including:

• Customer churn describes the decline in customer count during a specific period. It doesn’t address a drop in revenue, only focusing on the raw number of customers lost.
  
• Revenue churn represents revenue lost due to customers downgrading their plans or leaving the business altogether. Businesses with tiered pricing models typically focus on this type of churn.

• Early churn occurs when customers leave the business during their initial experience with the product or service. It highlights an issue with product onboarding and time to value since the product fails to demonstrate immediate utility to the customer.
  
• Active churn is when customers voluntarily stop using a service or product. The most straightforward example is when a customer decides to cancel their subscription. This decision could reflect dissatisfaction, finding a better alternative, or changing requirements.
  
• Passive churn is also described as involuntary churn. It occurs when customers don’t explicitly cancel their service. For example, a subscription that ends due to failure to update credit card details. This type of churn indicates issues beyond dissatisfaction, such as inadequate payment processing.

How to Reduce Customer Churn

1. Identify At-Risk Customers
2. Analyze Churn Drivers
3. Collect Regular Feedback
4. Identify Your Target Audience
5. Focus on Proactive Outreach
6. Deliver Excellent Customer Service
7. Understand Your Competition
8. Highlight Your Value
9. Invest in Customer Loyalty
10. Improve Onboarding
11. Educate Your Customers
12. Encourage Long-Term Engagement

Customer churn is a serious challenge, with U.S. businesses losing $136 billion annually due to avoidable churn. Here are 12 impactful ways to reduce churn and prevent it from impacting your revenue streams.

Identify At-Risk Customers

Knowing who is likely to leave helps you optimize your churn reduction efforts. It enables you to pinpoint specific user profiles for re-engagement. Tracking activity levels is a straightforward way to recognize at-risk customers. For example, if they haven’t renewed their subscription or completed a survey in a while, they might be losing interest in your product.

Analyze Churn Drivers

Churn occurs for various reasons that can highlight significant areas for improvement. Customers may leave due to product dissatisfaction, poor service quality, high pricing, or simply because a competitor offers more value. 

Leverage churn prediction tools, feedback, and usage data to analyze key factors driving customers away. For example, if customers complain about a lack of features, it signals a need for product improvements. Addressing these drivers allows you to enhance satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. 

To see what this can look like in action, read this customer story to learn how this large Telecommunications organization parted with Pearl-Plaza to identify the root cause of customer churn and identified $6 million in at-risk revenue!

Collect Regular Feedback

Consistent feedback collection is essential for tracking customer expectations and behavior. Businesses that actively use customer feedback for improvements experience a 10% increase in retention rates.

Use surveys and social media monitoring to capture insights into customer experiences. Leverage analytics to understand their pain points and goals. For example, if feedback reveals confusion during onboarding, you can improve your processes to make them more intuitive.

Pearl-Plaza’s XI platform enables you to collect and analyze customer insights effectively. It leverages CX integrations to connect and collect feedback from every channel, making it easier to act on. As a result, you build trust, improve retention, and reduce the likelihood of customers leaving.

Fill out the calculator below to reveal how much ROI you can get from utilizing Pearl-Plaza’s platform: 

Calculate your business’s ROI using Pearl-Plaza’s VoC tools.

Industry

Please Select Automotive Entertainment Financial Services Healthcare Hospitality Insurance Retail All

Number of Customers

Annual Revenue per Customer ($)

Annual Churn Rate (%)

Number of Promoters

Lead to Conversion Rate (%)

Number of calls per year

Percent of calls where issue is not resolved (%)

Currency

USD ($) EUR (€) GBP (£) AUD ($) NZD ($) SGD ($) PHP (₱)

Estimated Revenue Growth

Use the calculator to find an estimated ROI

Total ICX ROI

Submit two or more calculators to show an overview of what your integrated CX program could return.

Pearl-Plaza Helps You Unlock More Insight from Your Data — Starting Right Now.

Whether you are curious about other programs/ROIs, want to gain a better understanding of options in the market, or are insight-obsessed like us, you can gain unlimited access to all of our valuable calculators by simply entering your email. You’ll also unlock valuable customer experience analytics resources, articles, and other tools to help you quickly elevate your CX program and grow your business.

Identify Your Target Audience

You can build the best product with high-quality customer support behind it. However, it’ll struggle to keep target customers on board if it doesn’t resonate with them. Therefore, you must recognize the user profiles that can make the most of your product. These customers are less likely to be swayed by lower prices elsewhere because they see genuine value in your business.

Focus on Proactive Outreach

Proactive communication is an important part of re-engaging at-risk customers. It shows your awareness of potential issues, making customers feel valued and heard. Stay ahead of customer needs with regular check-ins and possible solutions.

Deliver Excellent Customer Service

Feedback collection, analysis, and social listening provide the insights you need to improve customer experiences. In fact, 77% of customers are willing to share personal information as long as they receive better experiences in return. For example, improving your e-commerce website’s user interface after listening to customers will improve your chances of retaining many of them.

Understand Your Competition

If customers are considering leaving you, guess where they might go next? Your competitors! Analyzing the major players in your space will help you stay competitive by identifying their strengths and weaknesses. It will also help you see how you can differentiate your product and service to stand out.

For example, if your competitor is receiving criticism for slow customer support, you can use the opportunity to market your 24/7 multi-channel service. Competitive analysis allows you to address market gaps and remain relevant for existing and potential customers.

Highlight Your Value

We just discussed how competitor analysis provides opportunities to establish yourself as a viable alternative. This is where you must communicate your product’s or service’s long-term value. Leverage marketing channels to highlight impactful ways in which you solve customer pain points. Your online reputation management efforts will also be crucial, as they yield positive reviews that you can use to reinforce value and reduce churn. 

Invest in Customer Loyalty

Strong customer loyalty is key to reducing churn. 64% of loyal customers are more likely to purchase frequently. Besides improving customer experiences, you can encourage loyalty with rewards and incentives. A good loyalty program goes a long way toward strengthening relationships and increasing customer lifetime value. Incentives like discounts and loyalty points encourage customers to stick with your brand over the long term.

Improve Onboarding

The onboarding process sets the tone for the customer journey with your brand. An effective product onboarding experience ensures a short time to value and reduces the chances of early churn.

For example, you can create step-by-step tutorials, welcome emails, or in-app guides tailored to new users. Proactively address common questions and offer easy access to support during onboarding to build trust. This approach sets the groundwork for long-term satisfaction by empowering customers to achieve their goals early on.

Educate Your Customers

Customers who understand how to capture value through your product are more likely to stay long-term. Educating your audience ensures they use it effectively to fulfill their needs. Leverage guides, webinars, video tutorials, and newsletters to inform customers.

Another benefit of educating your customers is brand credibility. Customers and prospects are likely to view you as a trusted authority in your space. As a result, educational initiatives promote trust and long-term loyalty.

Encourage Long-Term Engagement

Engagement is crucial to keeping customers connected to your brand. Regular interactions remind customers of the value you offer and encourage long-term loyalty. Personalized recommendations, gamification, or exclusive community access can help foster long-term relationships. This approach helps reduce churn likelihood by making customers feel invested in your brand.

How Does Improving the Overall Customer Experience Reduce Customer Churn?

The best way to hold on to a customer is to deliver consistent and positive experiences. Excellent customer experience management is key to customer satisfaction and staying ahead of competitors. Here are four key ways in which CX improvements help reduce customer churn:

• It enhances customer loyalty: Loyal customers spend more frequently and are likelier to recommend your brand to others. As a result, they are far less likely to switch to competitors.
• It flags potential pain points early: Analyzing the customer journey helps you spot and address issues that might lead to churn. Proactive communication and problem-solving play a huge role in retaining at-risk customers.
• It strengthens customer relationships: Delivering personalized interactions creates an emotional bond between customers and the brand. This connection encourages long-term relationships.
• It highlights your unique value to customers: Positive customer experiences highlight the unique benefits of your product or service. They help customers recognize your value in their daily lives, reducing their likelihood of seeking alternatives.

How to Reduce Customer Churn Using Customer Journey Analytics

Customer journey analytics helps businesses map and understand the end-to-end customer experience. It pinpoints glaring issues, tracks customer behavior, and highlights where customers might churn.

For example, if analytics reveal a pattern of early churn, you can address the issue with clearer onboarding instructions or proactive support. These insights enable you to personalize interactions and improve weak touchpoints.

How to Use NPS to Reduce Customer Churn

Net promoter score (NPS) is a valuable metric for understanding customer loyalty and reducing churn. It categorizes customers as promoters, passives, and detractors to highlight the likelihood of customer retention. Promoters are loyal advocates, while detractors are disgruntled customers at risk of churning.

NPS surveys help collect feedback from both types of customers. Following up with detractors and resolving their issues on a priority basis can convert them into loyal customers. Analyzing the change in NPS over a specific period is also helpful in tracking the success of retention strategies.

How Pearl-Plaza Can Help Reduce Customer Churn

Customer churn results in significant business losses that make it difficult to survive in a competitive market. While you can’t completely eliminate churn, you can reduce it to grow your revenue and market share. Pearl-Plaza provides industry-recognized churn prediction software that enables early identification of churn drivers and at-risk customers. Schedule a demo of our text analytics solution today to see how it can help boost retention rates!

AI: Hype, Hallucinations, and Human Oversight

Generative AI stole the spotlight in 2024, offering revolutionary possibilities—from personalized marketing to automated support. Yet, the reality is more nuanced. AI is an amplifier, generating outputs based on input quality. Remember the infamous case of AI suggesting glue on pizza? It underscores the need for vigilance and human oversight.

Think of AI as an intern needing guidance—it doesn’t replace human judgment but enhances it. Successful AI integration combines AI with Human Intelligence (HI) to ensure ethical, relevant, and brand-aligned interactions.

Real-world example: Taco Bell’s voice AI drive-thru improves efficiency but keeps employees involved for complex tasks, blending AI’s speed with human empathy.

Key takeaway: Thoughtful AI integration, with human oversight, augments customer connections rather than replacing them.

The AI Debate: A CX Game-Changer or Trust-Buster?

To learn more about how organizations are utilizing AI without losing the human touch, download this guide today! Packed with useful insights, it’s your roadmap to a smarter, balanced, and customer-centric approach to AI.

The AI Debate: A CX Game-Changer or Trust-Buster?

This is your essential guide for using AI to elevate CX without sacrificing trust. Packed with useful insights, it’s your roadmap to a smarter, balanced, and customer-centric approach to AI.

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Society: Divided, Yet Connected

Customers navigate a paradox: craving connection in an overstimulated, fragmented world. Societal trends are shaping new opportunities and challenges for CX leaders:

• Wellness Culture: Self-care is booming, from non-alcoholic beverages to gut health products. But wellness culture can fuel health anxiety. CX leaders must offer authentic support without exploiting fears.
• Social Divides: From dating apps highlighting income disparity to far-right riots affecting footfall, social inequalities are more visible. Brands must foster inclusion through thoughtful CX strategies.
• Youth Trends: Gen Z’s rising influence demands authenticity, sustainability, and inclusivity. It’s not just their buying power but their values that matter. Aligning experiences with these principles fosters loyalty.

Key takeaway: Brands that support well-being, inclusion, and individuality will forge stronger connections and resilience in their CX strategies.

Experience Design: From Transactions to Transformations

Today’s best experiences go beyond reducing friction—they transform interactions. The goal: anticipate needs, foster emotional connections, and make every touchpoint memorable. Here’s how:

• Sustainable Interactions: Conscious design minimizes environmental impact and builds trust.
• Tactile Resurgence: Physical buttons are back! Companies like Apple reintroduce tactile keys, prioritizing comfort over aesthetics.
• Preventative Experiences: Proactive strategies (like reducing return rates) prevent friction. Smart recommendations can turn these efforts positive.
• Innovative In-Store Interactions: Gamified shopping and self-service returns transform mundane tasks into engaging experiences.
• Preserve Human Connection: Digital efficiency (like mobile orders) streamlines tasks but can erode joy. Balance technology with personal interaction.
• Data-Driven Design: Too much data overwhelms without context. Filter relevant insights to focus on what truly matters.

Key takeaway: Transformative experience design anticipates needs, aligns with values, and enhances human connections. In order to achieve this, you need to know how to leverage all your data.

The Psychology of Change: Helping Humans Adapt

Change is hard—especially with new technologies. The “mere exposure effect” shows that familiarity breeds comfort. Transparency and training are crucial. Frame AI as an enabler, not a replacer, to build trust and ease transitions.

Emotions Drive Decisions: Emotional experiences leave a lasting impact—sometimes positive, sometimes not. To create moments of delight and minimize friction, you need a fresh approach that combines creativity with customer behavior analysis. Take Houston Airport, for example: they famously cut complaints not by speeding up baggage delivery, but by making passengers walk longer, reducing the perception of wait time. It’s all about rethinking the journey to reshape the experience.

Psychology in Practice:

• Behavioral Insights Matter: Simplify choices to prevent overwhelming customers.
• Reframing Works: Change perspectives to change outcomes.
• Action Bias Alert: Sometimes, doing less is the smartest move. Take penalty shots in football for example. Data shows that goalkeepers who stay centered instead of diving dramatically actually save more. It’s a reminder that strategic patience often beats impulsive action.

Looking Ahead: Balancing Innovation and Human Connection

As we move into 2025, the key to CX excellence lies in balance. AI offers incredible potential, but human connection defines exceptional experiences.

Key Action Points:

• Integrate AI with HI: Enhance efficiency while maintaining brand integrity.
• Champion Authenticity: Navigate societal divides with honest, empathetic CX strategies.
• Engage Younger Audiences: Align with Gen Z’s values to resonate across generations.

CX leaders have a unique opportunity to meet evolving expectations, from integrating AI for seamless personalization to rethinking wellness campaigns for genuine care.

Want to learn more? Check out our 2025 Consumer Trends Report for deeper insights and practical guidance on navigating the future of customer experience.

For many businesses, the solution lies in customer experience outsourcing. By partnering with specialized providers, companies can tap into expertise, streamline operations, and provide 24/7 customer support—without overburdening their internal teams.

As a matter of fact, customer experience outsourcing can boost efficiency by up to 25% and give your organization more time to focus on core business functions. 

What is Customer Experience Outsourcing?

Customer experience outsourcing involves delegating certain aspects of customer experience management to third-party providers. These providers manage interactions across various channels, including customer support, social media, live chat, email, and technical support.

Customer experience outsourcing does not just refer to outsourcing different channels, it also refers to outsourcing the management of your entire customer experience program to a trusted provider who can provide you with software, services, and reporting. 

Benefits of Customer Experience Outsourcing

Outsourcing customer experience can offer transformative benefits for businesses of all sizes. Here are some of the key advantages:

• Cost Savings: Outsourcing eliminates the need for in-house hiring, training, and infrastructure, reducing operational costs. Many outsourcing providers also operate in regions with lower labor costs, further driving savings.
• Access to Expertise and Technology: Customer experience outsourcing partners bring specialized knowledge, cutting-edge tools, and best practices that might not be available in-house. They stay updated on industry trends, ensuring your customers get top-tier support.
• Scalability and Flexibility: Whether it’s seasonal demand or rapid business growth, outsourcing allows you to scale your operations quickly and efficiently. Providers can adjust team sizes and resources to meet your needs.
• 24/7 Availability: Many CX outsourcing providers operate around the clock, ensuring your customers can receive support anytime, anywhere.
• Focus on Core Operations: By outsourcing customer experience tasks, your internal team can dedicate more time to strategic business goals and innovation.

Challenges of Outsourcing Customer Experience

While customer experience outsourcing offers significant advantages, it’s not without challenges. Organizations interested in customer experience outsourcing need to be aware of potential pitfalls and address them proactively. Here are some of the main challenges of customer experience management outsourcing:

• Loss of Brand Voice: Outsourcing can sometimes lead to inconsistencies in how your brand communicates with customers, which might impact customer trust.
• Communication Barriers: Language and cultural differences can pose challenges, especially when working with offshore providers.
• Quality Control: Maintaining high standards in customer interactions can be difficult without robust monitoring and feedback systems.
• Data Security and Privacy: Sharing customer data with third parties can increase the risk of breaches or non-compliance with regulations like GDPR or CCPA.

To mitigate these challenges, your business should invest time in selecting the right customer experience outsourcing partner, ensuring alignment with their values, and establishing clear performance metrics.

How to Choose the Right Customer Experience Outsourcing Partner

Selecting the right customer experience outsourcing partner is an important step in your customer experience strategy. Here are some key factors to consider:

• Industry experience
• Technology and tools
• Cultural Fit
• Scalability

Industry Experience

When choosing a CX partner, you want a partner who understands your industry and has a proven track record of delivering excellent results in your sector. You can narrow down vendors by reading customer experience improvement stories that highlight improvements in business performance as a direct result of CX improvement.

Technology and Tools

It is important to choose a partner that uses advanced technology and tools that can also be customized to your specific needs. You can examine which vendors have the best CX technology by reading reviews and third-party evaluations. 

Cultural Fit

When selecting a customer experience management outsourcing partner, it is important to ensure that they understand your brand’s core values and maintain the same voice you embody in your current customer interactions. 

This step ensures that the experiences delivered to your customers remain consistent and reflect the essence of your brand. By collaborating with a partner who understands and upholds your principles, you can create a seamless and cohesive experience that reinforces trust and loyalty among your clientele.

Scalability

Choose a provider capable of scaling resources to meet your business’s evolving customer experience needs.

When selecting a customer experience outsourcing partner, it is important to choose one that has the capability to scale resources effectively to accommodate the changing demands of your business’s customer experience program. 

Pearl-Plaza’s platform is easily scalable and customizable to match the evolving needs of your business. Regardless of your business currently falls on the customer experience maturity model, Pearl-Plaza can meet you where you are and help you scale accordingly. 

Choosing the Right Customer Experience Outsourcing Approach

When it comes to customer experience outsourcing, businesses have a range of options to choose from. Some organizations may prefer fully entrusting their CX operations to an external partner and leveraging a full-service solution’s expertise and comprehensive support. 

Others may opt for greater autonomy and select a self-service solution that gives them control over their CX strategy while relying on a vendor for technology and minimal support.

Understanding the distinction between these two approaches—full-service and self-service—is essential for businesses looking to make informed decisions about customer experience outsourcing and their overall CX management strategy.

What Is a Full-Service Customer Experience Solution?

A full-service CX solution refers to a CX partnership in which the company providing the platform manages all aspects of the technology (programming, analysis, change management, etc.).

This relationship between the organization and the CX vendor is services-driven, and a brand that purchases this type of solution can expect to have a dedicated team of experienced CX and technology experts to check in with regularly and help the brand with every aspect of its CX program. 

A full-service CX vendor will help your team define strategy, implement the technology, train team members, craft surveys, import other customer data, design reporting dashboards, and beyond.  

What Is a Self-Service Customer Experience Solution?

A self-service CX vendor refers to a situation in which a person or persons within the purchasing organization are responsible for all aspects of the ongoing technology usage.

A brand purchasing a self-service CX solution can expect to have full control and autonomy in their CX initiatives. There is often a dedicated implementation team, but post implementation, there is more likely to be a helpline or contact the brand can reach out to in case of an error or if they’re in need of help.

Of course, there is a gray area between the two categories. A CX vendor that emphasizes true partnership will emphasize that customer experience is not one size fits all and will therefore offer a blend of self-service and support-driven options to fit your needs. For example, a vendor may offer DIY survey tools alongside strategic insight sessions. 

How to Determine Which Is Right for You

A full-service program can be a great choice if you’re short on resources or want to utilize customer experience management outsourcing. With a full-service program, you can fill in any gaps in resources or skill sets with the considerable expertise your full-service CX vendor has on staff. Your dedicated team will know your business, goals, and program.

A full-service CX solution will also help you to drive more long-term strategy for your program. Check-ins will help you to stay accountable to goals, and your vendor will be able to advise you on any challenges, as well as connect you with other CX professionals in your industry. 

On the other hand, a self-service program may be a better option if you have the expertise and resources to accomplish your CX goals in-house. With a self-service program, you can make changes to surveys or other initiatives in the middle of the night if you want to. 

Additionally, self-service programs can be more cost-effective in the long run, since you won’t be paying for the vendor’s management services.

Best Practices for Successful Customer Experience Outsourcing

Customer experience outsourcing is a large investment. The partner you choose to entrust your CX program with will have a direct impact on business performance. In order to ensure you choose the right partner and make the most out of your investment, follow these best practices: 

• Set clear goals and KPIs
• Maintain regular communication 
• Invest in training
• Monitor performance
• Foster collaboration

Set Clear Goals and KPIs

Establishing clear objectives and customer experience metrics is essential for a successful outsourcing partnership. Clearly communicate what success looks like for your CX initiatives, whether it’s improving customer satisfaction scores, reducing response times, or increasing retention rates. These benchmarks will guide your partner’s efforts and ensure alignment with your business goals.

Maintain Regular Communication

Frequent and open communication is the foundation of a strong customer experience outsourcing relationship. Schedule regular check-ins and performance reviews to stay aligned with your partner. These touchpoints allow you to address any challenges, share updates, and ensure that your CX strategy remains on track.

Invest in Training

Equip your customer experience outsourcing partner’s team with the knowledge they need to represent your brand effectively. Comprehensive training on your products, services, and brand values ensures consistency in customer interactions and helps the team align with your business ethos. A well-trained team can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Monitor Performance

Effectively utilizing a customer experience dashboard will help you track the performance of your CX program and of your customer experience outsourcing provider. 

Foster Collaboration

In order to develop the most successful partnership with your customer experience outsourcing provider, view them as an extension of your internal team. Foster a collaborative relationship by encouraging open communication, brainstorming solutions together, and sharing feedback. A strong partnership built on mutual trust and teamwork will lead to better customer and business results.

Take Pearl-Plaza’s Quiz and Get Started

Ultimately, the decision on the extent of your customer experience outsourcing efforts depends on a variety of factors, including the size of your organization, your budget, and your technical expertise. 

Take the Pearl-Plaza quiz below to get started and find out whether a self-service or full-service customer experience outsourcing solution is best for you!

Self-Serve v. Full Service CX Program

Take this quiz to discover which type of customer experience outsourcing solution will work best for your business. The answer will determine how much support your team receives, the expertise you have access to, where your team will spend their time, and more! Take the quiz now to get started.

Self-Serve v. Full Service CX Program

Take this quiz to discover which type of customer experience outsourcing solution will work best for your business. The answer will determine how much support your team receives, the expertise you have access to, where your team will spend their time, and more! Take the quiz now to get started.

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Why Is Reputation Management Important for Credit Unions?

1. Attracting New Members
2. Member Loyalty
3. Competitive Advantage
4. Crisis Management

Credit unions are member-driven financial cooperatives. As a result, their success relies on the trust their members place in them. The online space, especially in the form of social media and review sites, amplifies public opinion. One bad experience with your credit union leads to a negative review that can be enough to turn away many potential members.

In fact, 49% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Here are four key reasons why online reputation management for credit unions is important:

Attracting New Members

Your credit union’s online reputation is a major deciding factor for prospective members. A positive reputation encourages new memberships by highlighting your reliability and value. Meanwhile, negative reviews and testimonials make it easy for potential members to consider other options.

Member Loyalty

Existing members are more likely to remain loyal to a credit union they trust. Reputation management efforts ensure you make your members feel heard and valued. This member-centric approach helps build stronger relationships and improves retention rates.

Competitive Advantage

The reality is that you are competing not just with other unions but also with larger banks. A positive reputation highlights the unique benefits your credit union offers to members. 

For example, glowing online reviews will likely convince individuals to choose your member-first approach over traditional banking. With customer feedback influencing decision-making, a strong reputation is your key to standing out in a competitive space.

Crisis Management

Online complaints about your financial institution can quickly escalate and damage your reputation. With community ties playing a pivotal role in your institution, a single negative experience can spread like wildfire online. 

Proactive reputation management enables credit unions to navigate crises by monitoring and analyzing member sentiment. A quick and empathetic response is crucial for transforming reputational risks into opportunities to strengthen trust.

What Are the Benefits of Reputation Management for Credit Unions?

Credit union reputation management offers a competitive edge by boosting member trust and loyalty. Key benefits include:

• Improved member retention as a result of quick responses and effective issue resolution.
• Stronger customer loyalty due to increased member satisfaction. For example, closing the feedback loop with a disgruntled member can turn them into a loyal advocate.
• Community ties strengthen as reputation management efforts reinforce positive perceptions and member engagement.
• Competitive edge over financial institutions as a result of consistently high member satisfaction leading to positive brand image.

Why Are Listings and Reputation Management for Credit Unions Important?

1. Boost Discoverability
2. Enhance Local SEO
3. Build Trust
4. Drive Member Growth

Digital search is one of the most popular channels for discovering your credit union. Most prospective members are likely to look you up on Google, Bing, or Apple Maps before making a decision. Here are four powerful results you can accomplish with listings management:

Boost Discoverability

Prospective members often rely on online searches to find nearby credit unions. Maintain accurate listings on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Apple Maps. This ensures your credit union appears in search results with correct contact details, work hours, and locations. As a result, you boost your visibility, making it easier for potential members to find and trust you.

Enhance Local SEO

Accurate listings improve your local SEO, which helps attract more members. Start by understanding your local audience, including pain points and preferences. Incorporate relevant keywords in your listings to boost visibility in search results. Track SEO performance by monitoring changes in local rankings. The insights will help you adjust your strategy and target the right individuals.

Build Trust

Consistency across online listings and your website strengthens trust. For example, conflicting information about your hours or address can frustrate potential members. This negative sentiment can impact your market share as members flock to competitors. Listings management prevents such confusion by ensuring accurate and complete business information.

Drive Member Growth

Credit unions with accurate listings and strong reputations see higher engagement and membership growth. For example, a member searching for “credit union with great loan rates” will likely choose an institution with glowing reviews over one with unresolved complaints or poor online visibility.

Financial Services Reputation Benchmarks 2024

See where your credit union stands by downloading Pearl-Plaza’s 2024 Financial Services Reputation Benchmarks Report! This report examines in great detail the reviews and ratings data of today’s top financial service brands.

Financial Services Reputation Benchmarks 2024

Pearl-Plaza’s 2024 Financial Services Online Reputation Benchmarks Report provides a top-level view of the state of reviews today for the financial service industry — and how these reviews reflect the experiences financial services consumers want to have. The benchmarks serve as a valuable tool for organizations looking to assess their reputational performance, set goals, make informed decisions, and drive continuous customer experience improvement.

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How to Improve Your Credit Union’s Online Reputation?

1. Understand Your Target Audience
2. Encourage Member Reviews
3. Monitor and Respond to Feedback
4. Analyze Competitors
5. Invest in Reputation Management Software

Understand Your Target Audience

It’s essential to understand your target audience profiles to improve your chances of engaging them. For example, if you want to target younger members, a good practice would be to enhance your social media presence. You can even identify and use viral trends to better connect with such members.

Active engagement with current and potential members will help you tailor your marketing efforts. Use a social listening tool like Pearl-Plaza to track and analyze online conversations around credit unions. The insights will help you understand specific pain points that you can solve to engage your target audience. It also helps you customize your outreach efforts, establishing your brand as reliable and trustworthy.

Encourage Member Reviews

Positive reviews influence potential members by highlighting you as a credible organization. 88% of both millennial and Gen-Z consumers rely on online reviews when evaluating a financial product or institution. 

Therefore, it’s important to improve your members’ experiences and encourage them to leave positive reviews online. The authentic voice of a satisfied member can be enough to build trust with prospects.

Monitor and Respond to Feedback

Implement a member feedback loop by monitoring and responding to feedback. Responding to both positive and negative reviews enhances your reputation by showing members you care.

Leverage survey requests and online mentions of your credit union to collect feedback. Pearl-Plaza’s XI platform is an excellent tool for connecting member feedback from various channels and analyzing it for insights. Its automated alerts feature is especially useful for quickly identifying and responding to a member review. Quick and effective responses help close feedback loops and enhance member satisfaction.

Analyze Competitors

Monitoring competitors’ online reputations can help you identify market gaps and differentiate your offerings. For example, let’s say your competitor is facing complaints about limited branch hours. You could take advantage of this opportunity by highlighting your 24/7 digital banking options in your marketing.

Pay attention to what members appreciate or criticize about other credit unions. Use this information to improve your services and position yourself as a better alternative. This approach will help establish your service as a reliable alternative and increase your market share.

Invest in Reputation Management Software

Collecting, analyzing, and responding to member reviews is an essential but tedious process. A good reputation management platform can streamline these processes for you. Pearl-Plaza’s industry-recognized review management software helps you track each piece of incoming feedback for effective monitoring and analysis. It provides actionable insights for your credit union so that you can invest more time in managing member relationships.

Reputation Management Tools for Credit Unions

1. Pearl-Plaza
2. Rize Reviews
3. Hootsuite
4. Brandwatch
5. MemberXP

With many options to choose from, selecting the right reputation management tool can be a daunting task. In this section, we have rounded up the five best tools to help you narrow your focus and make an informed decision.

Pearl-Plaza

Pearl-Plaza provides reputation management solutions for credit unions looking to dominate local search. It allows financial institutions to monitor and connect customer reviews from various channels, including social media and review sites. 

With its response automation feature, you can leverage generative AI to provide quick and helpful responses. This enables you to implement and close feedback loops with members. Beyond collecting feedback, you can use Pearl-Plaza’s AI-enabled analytics to better understand member sentiment and behavior. The insights you gain from this analysis help you identify areas for improvement and address market gaps.

Boosting your local search rank is essential for visibility. The platform’s local listings management software provides ROI-specific insights from your Google or Apple Maps listings. This information helps you outrank competitors and enhance your online presence without increasing ad spend.

Fill out the calculator below to see the return on investment you could get from utilizing Pearl-Plaza’s reputation management tools:

Calculate your business’s ROI using Pearl-Plaza’s reputation management tools.

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Pearl-Plaza Helps You Unlock More Insight from Your Data — Starting Right Now.

Whether you are curious about other programs/ROIs, want to gain a better understanding of options in the market, or are insight-obsessed like us, you can gain unlimited access to all of our valuable calculators by simply entering your email. You’ll also unlock valuable customer experience analytics resources, articles, and other tools to help you quickly elevate your CX program and grow your business.

Rize Reviews

Rize Reviews simplifies the process of acquiring reviews to manage your online reputation. Key features include automated review requests, real-time feedback alerts, and a centralized dashboard for managing reviews. These features help credit unions improve their search rankings with high-quality reviews.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a review tracking and analysis tool that helps credit unions understand conversations around their services. Its Pearl-Plaza integration lets financial institutions monitor reviews on a dashboard for effective responses. The integration is also useful for filtering out the best reviews and highlighting them for reputation enhancement.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch enables real-time monitoring of brand mentions across social media and online review sites. Its analytics and reporting features are useful for gaining insight into member behavior and sharing them with stakeholders. 

MemberXP

MemberXP is an experience management platform that focuses on feedback collection and analysis. It enables real-time review monitoring to help credit unions provide immediate responses. The platform also provides competitor insights highlighting how organizations compare to other credit unions.

Improve Your Credit Union’s Reputation with Pearl-Plaza

Credit unions thrive on a positive online reputation that strengthens member relationships. Building trust is key, which is why you need reputation management to highlight your credibility to members and prospects. Pearl-Plaza’s XI platform makes it easy to establish trust by tracking, analyzing, and acting on member feedback. Schedule a reputation management demo today to see how you can get started!

However, building a solid CX program requires more than isolated efforts and reactive fixes. Businesses must focus on a strategic approach that helps them move the needle on their current CX programs. This is where a customer experience maturity model comes into play.

What is a Customer Experience Maturity Model?

A CX Maturity Model is a five-stage framework that evaluates the readiness and effectiveness of your CX program. It provides a data-driven approach to identifying areas for improvement across the customer journey. As a result, the model removes the guesswork from your customer experience strategy, replacing it with a roadmap to CX excellence.

Stages of Customer Experience Maturity

1. Investigate
2. Initiate
3. Mobilize
4. Scale
5. Embed

CX maturity starts from a static phase of identifying the first steps and concludes with integrating strong CX practices. The framework encourages continuous evolution to adapt to shifts in customer expectations.

Before we explore the five stages, it’s essential to understand the role of a CX team throughout this process. A team can leverage the following six competencies, or customer experience management skills, to complete each stage:

1. Lead: Key skills include strategy and governance to build, align, and sustain successful CX programs. For example, outlining a CX program and building a team to execute the vision.
2. Realize: Key skills include tracking key CX metrics to ensure the program is realizing value and achieving business goals. For example, tracking NPS to determine the success of recent loyalty efforts.
3. Activate: Key skills include communication and expertise building to ensure teams have the skills, support, and incentive to achieve CX goals. For example, training employees to adopt a customer-centric approach and rewarding their work to motivate them.
4. Enlighten: Key skills include CX data collection, analysis, and visualization to ensure actionable insights across the organization. For example, using surveys to collect feedback and sentiment analysis to understand emotional tone.
5. Respond: Key skills include effective response and strategic decision-making to deliver CX improvements based on insights. For example, following up with disgruntled customers and updating a product feature to fit client needs.
6. Disrupt: Key skills include customer experience design and integration to provide exceptional services. For example, using Pearl-Plaza’s XI platform to create a customer journey map showing how to optimize each phase.

Leveraging these competencies is crucial for moving through each of the following stages of CX maturity:

Investigate

In this initial phase, a business has yet to understand the value of a dynamic CX program. It views CX as a supplementary activity rather than a competitive differentiator.

As a result, teams primarily rely on in-house data like contact lists to reach out to customers via email. It’s a static approach that doesn’t consider targeted outreach or customer feedback analysis.

Organizations can progress from this stage by first achieving leadership buy-in. Visualize the value of CX efforts and share them with executives. Educate yourself so that you can address any questions or concerns. Highlight the positive impact of a customer-centric approach on the company’s bottom line.

Initiate

The leadership starts approving key activities as it realizes the value of customer experience management. An initial CX strategy takes shape during this stage. The organization establishes a team to explore and implement Voice of the Customer (VoC) approaches. 

Evolving from this stage requires a focus on the business impact of CX. Start with a few CX metrics like NPS and CSAT to build an initial use case. Leverage internal communications channels to convey the importance of CX across the company. Build a basic VoC program to start surveying customers for data collection.

Investing in robust CX software can simplify these activities. Pearl-Plaza offers an all-in-one customer experience platform that collects and connects data from various channels across the customer journey. From survey design to data analysis, the software provides organizations with the tools to set up a VoC program.

Mobilize

The organization establishes a full-time, dedicated CX team in this pivotal stage. The team is responsible for evolving the VoC program, sharing insights with leadership, and mapping customer journeys. 

For example, the team starts collecting and integrating experience data from multiple channels. It identifies customer pain points across various touchpoints and works to improve them. Audience segmentation and journey mapping emerge as useful CX strategies. These activities help realize significant customer experience ROI, motivating organizations to continue evolving.

Businesses can progress to the next stage by doubling down on CX tools and training. Invest in employee coaching to align more of the workforce with the customer-centric vision. Focus on a cross-functional approach to improving customer experiences. 

For example, a collaboration between marketing and product teams to engage a specific user segment with a new feature.

Scale

A solid customer-centric culture begins materializing in this stage. Organizations integrate CX processes across departments and incentivize customer-centric efforts. In fact, CX becomes a crucial part of hiring and performance management. This step encourages the use of customer experience metrics to improve business processes.

Organizations advance to the final stage by leveraging the entire workforce and advanced technology. Investing in AI-powered analysis to gain valuable insights from customer experiences. Align every department with the CX vision to continuously evolve and adapt to customer trends.

Embed

The last stage of maturity establishes CX as a core organizational value. It sets the foundation for product development, marketing, and human resources. Employees across the organization understand the power of CX metrics and work toward improving them. Data-driven decision-making enables companies to deliver the best possible experiences.

Why Has It Become Increasingly Important?

• Growing Customer Expectations
• The Impact of AI
• Competitive Advantage
• Adaptability

With evolving customer expectations, organizations must shift from static approaches to dynamic, data-driven strategies. Here’s why a CX maturity model is becoming essential for staying competitive:

Growing Customer Expectations

Customers expect quick, smooth, and personalized services more than ever before. 59% of customers believe businesses should use the data they collect to personalize their experiences. Companies that fail to meet these expectations risk losing market share to customer-centric competitors. A CX maturity model highlights tools and processes to meet these growing demands.

The Impact of AI

AI is transforming the way businesses interact with customers. It enables real-time analysis of key metrics to uncover customer insights and predict behavior. Companies using AI-powered automation also reduce repetitive tasks by up to 40%.

As a result, it’s essential to harness the power of AI to improve customer service. Invest in self-service options like intelligent chatbots for quick issue resolution. Leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) to better understand customer feedback. Consider churn prediction models to retain at-risk customers and enhance their satisfaction.

Competitive Advantage

CX maturity is a crucial differentiator for businesses in a hyper-competitive market. Organizations that evolve to higher stages of maturity are more likely to retain customers, convert leads, and increase their market share. This competitive edge is the result of a stronger focus on customer relationships.

Adaptability

CX maturity empowers organizations to be flexible and proactive. The integration of CX principles across the organization helps teams pivot and respond to new challenges. 

For example, investing in a social listening tool helps businesses stay on top of online conversations. This approach ensures they identify issues and resolve them before it’s too late. Similarly, it’s a useful strategy for tracking market trends and adapting to them.

How CX Leaders Use CX Maturity Model to Scale Their CX Program?

1. Evaluate CX Maturity Levels
2. Establish Data-Driven Processes
3. Expand the VoC Program
4. Encourage Cross-Functional CX Teams

CX leaders use a CX maturity model as a framework to evaluate and scale their experience programs. It provides a strategic approach to streamlining CX processes for business growth. Here are four ways in which organizations use the model to achieve CX maturity:

Evaluating CX Maturity Levels

CX leaders start by assessing the maturity of their current customer experience program. A maturity model helps with this self-assessment, enabling companies to prioritize and take action.

This self-evaluation typically involves the analysis of current practices and team capabilities. It helps outline the next steps and set realistic goals for scaling. For example, an organization in the “Investigate” stage must focus on securing leadership buy-in as a first step. Businesses in the “Initiate” stage must invest in a dedicated CX team to lead initiatives.

Establishing Data-Driven Processes

Data collection and analysis are key drivers of CX maturity. Advanced customer experience programs ingest more experience data for insights than their less mature counterparts. The latter usually rely on basic resources like contact lists with little analysis.

Therefore, a CX maturity model encourages an omnichannel, analytical approach. CX leaders invest in Voice of Customer Analysis to identify pain points and growth opportunities. As a result, they are in a better position to personalize customer experiences.

Expanding the VoC Program

Evolving the VoC program is crucial to delivering consistent value to customers. A CX maturity model helps evaluate the current state of the VoC program and highlights steps for improvement. This expansion ensures the company stays on top of market and customer trends.

For example, companies moving from “Mobilize” to “Scale” expand the scope of their VoC program with the help of technology. They rely on AI customer feedback tools like Pearl-Plaza to dive deeper into customer experiences for actionable insights. These insights help them close feedback loops and improve satisfaction levels.

Encouraging Cross-Functional CX Teams

CX leaders start focusing on cross-functional teams as they evolve through CX maturity. This shift in priority occurs due to CX becoming a key business strategy. As a result, harnessing the entire workforce for CX improvements becomes essential. The model encourages greater employee engagement as the CX program continues to progress.

For example, CX leaders in the “Mobilize” stage work with marketing and product teams to provide a consistent experience across all touchpoints. The insights from customer feedback can guide feature development to solve specific pain points. The marketing team can target specific segments with this feature to boost retention and acquisition.

How Pearl-Plaza Can Help Expand Your CX Program

Achieving customer-centricity is a journey well worth the investment. A CX maturity model provides a tiered framework for organizations to progress toward this goal. Pearl-Plaza’s award-winning XI platform helps companies realize ROI in less than 12 months, which is twice as fast as the industry average. Schedule a demo today to see how Pearl-Plaza can guide you toward higher stages of customer experience maturity!

What is Social Media Intelligence?

Social media intelligence is the analysis of data from social media conversations to guide marketing strategy. Your brand can better connect with your audience by tracking trends in online conversations around your product and industry. 

For example, identifying negative sentiment toward your latest feature can help you spot areas for improvement. It’s also possible that your product is fine but your team is marketing it to the wrong demographic. As a result, these insights also enable effective marketing and lead generation.

Here’s a breakdown of the four key components of social media intelligence:

1. Monitoring
2. Data Collection
3. Data Analysis
4. Actionable Insights

Monitoring 

Monitoring your social media channels is the first step in identifying and analyzing audience activity. What are your target customers talking about? What are their opinions on your brand and your competitors? How do they feel about your products and services? You can answer these questions by monitoring brand mentions and keywords on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter).

Data Collection 

Collecting data is necessary for generating analytical insights from social media conversations. Pearl-Plaza’s comprehensive social listening tool can help pull mentions of your brand and competitor, track relevant keywords, and connect data from various channels in one place. The regular, real-time data collection ensures you have a rich dataset for the analytical phase.

Data Analysis 

Analysis is at the core of social media intelligence, enabling you to capture AI-enabled insights into customer behavior. For example, you can leverage sentiment analysis algorithms to understand public opinion around your brand. You can execute similar algorithms on competitor data to identify differences in online perception.

Actionable Insights 

Actionable insights are the fruit of your analytical labor, showing you how to stay competitive and win over more customers. These insights help you take immediate and effective action for feature improvements or a better marketing campaign. The main aim is to invest in activities that increase customer loyalty and engagement.

How Does Social Media Intelligence Differ from Social Media Listening and Social Media Monitoring?

Social media intelligence, social listening, and social monitoring are used interchangeably. However, they serve different purposes for brands looking to understand online conversations.

• Social Media Intelligence is the comprehensive collection and analysis of social media data for actionable insights. It helps brands analyze customer sentiment, trends, and competitors to make data-driven business decisions.
• Social Listening is the analysis of social media conversations around your brand, product, or service. It helps businesses see what customers are talking about to identify opportunities and pain points.
• Social Media Monitoring is the tracking of brand and product mentions through keywords and hashtags. Social media monitoring enables brands to find customer queries and complaints so they can provide immediate responses.

Benefits of Social Media Intelligence

• Stronger Customer Relationships
• Lead Generation
• Staying Competitive
• Proactive Crisis Management

Social media intelligence helps unlock valuable insights into customers, prospects, and competitors. Key benefits include:

Stronger Customer Relationships

You may have the best customer feedback questionnaire for collecting structured CX data. However, the reality is that customers are more likely to be honest and open about their experiences on social media. 

Listening to their online voice ensures you better understand your customers’ expectations. You get to capture honest insights to deliver more value, which in turn helps build stronger relationships and brand loyalty.

Lead Generation

Social media intelligence provides insights that help tailor your marketing efforts to your target audience. 

For example, a fashion retailer can leverage data analysis to identify demographics expressing interest in its premium suits and dresses. The retailer can invest in targeted ad campaigns to attract these user profiles and convert them into valuable customers. This effective lead generation also helps increase your market share as your campaign draws in more prospects.

Staying Competitive 

Your competitors’ social media activity highlights opportunities to improve your own brand. Tracking competitor mentions keeps you in the loop regarding key developments and issues. You can use this information to improve on their current offerings or fulfill a need they are neglecting. 

For example, let’s say several comments and posts are complaining about the use of leather in your competitors’ handbags. You can leverage this opportunity to promote your vegan fashion items to disgruntled users. The resulting competitive edge will help you win over customers to your side.

Proactive Crisis Management

Social media intelligence provides real-time monitoring of sentiment and conversations around your brand. By identifying negative trends early, you can address issues proactively before they escalate.

For example, if you identify growing frustration about a bug in your app, you can release a prompt update to reassure customers. This practice helps build consumer trust and supports brand reputation management efforts.

How is Artificial Intelligence Used for Social Media?

• Sentiment Analysis
• Content Creation
• Customer Engagement
• Analytics and Reporting

Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables social media intelligence by automating crucial tasks and uncovering CX insights. Primary applications of AI for businesses include:

Content Creation

AI helps businesses streamline various tasks, including content creation and scheduling. Generative AI drastically reduces the time it takes to produce impactful content that engages your target audience. Meanwhile, automation enables quick and effective scheduling of posts for enhanced interactions.

Pearl-Plaza’s social media management tool tracks trending keywords and topics to generate fresh, engaging content. As a result, it helps you stay relevant to your audience while saving time that you can invest in other operations.

Sentiment Analysis

AI-powered sentiment analysis highlights customer feelings towards your products, services, or brand. It categorizes comments, posts, or social media content as positive, neutral, or negative. This categorization is useful for filtering out user profiles and managing their experiences.

For example, you can quickly identify customers expressing negative sentiments to resolve their issues. Monitoring customer health and journeys regularly helps companies reduce churn by over 34% for at-risk clients. Therefore, sentiment analysis helps boost retention by keeping businesses up-to-date on customer behaviors and reactions.

Customer Engagement

Chatbots and virtual assistants improve engagement by instantly addressing customer queries. With a comprehensive knowledge base, they can even guide customers through complex processes without human intervention. 

AI-powered chatbots learn from customer questions to provide targeted responses and recommendations. Pearl-Plaza’s Active Listening is a conversational AI agent that provides context-aware follow-up questions to engage customers. As a result, it enables detailed feedback collection to help businesses make informed decisions.

Analytics and Reporting

AI simplifies analyzing large volumes of social media data to generate actionable insights. It helps you understand content performance, trends, and demographics to make data-driven decisions.

For example, analytics can show you which type of content receives the most engagement to help you optimize marketing campaigns. Similarly, it can highlight products receiving the most attention to guide inventory decisions. Visualizing these insights and sharing them with stakeholders can help brands track the effectiveness of their social media management.

How are CX Teams Benefiting from Social Media Intelligence?

• Competitor Analysis
• Reputation Management
• Trend Analysis
• Targeted Outreach

CX teams collaborate with multiple departments to improve customer experiences. Their cross-functional nature makes them a great fit for social media intelligence. Key benefits for CX teams include:

Competitor Analysis

Social media intelligence highlights competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. This analysis empowers CX teams to identify gaps in the market and proactively address them. 

For example, CX teams in an organization can discover potential pain points by tracking competitors’ customer feedback. They can use this information to resolve issues before they affect their own customers. Additionally, they can position their brand as a more reliable alternative, helping them acquire new clients.

Reputation Management

Social networks can amplify wins and crises for brands. Therefore, staying on top of conversations and tracking customer sentiment is essential for brand reputation management. 

Analyzing comments, reviews, and brand mentions can help CX teams detect crises early and manage them before it’s too late. It also enables them to highlight their wins and demonstrate their value through testimonials. This approach builds customer trust and enhances the company’s public perception.

Trend Analysis

Social media intelligence tools track trending topics and emerging themes. This analysis provides CX teams with valuable insights into customer interests and behaviors.

For example, a fitness app’s CX team might notice a rising interest in mindfulness and meditation. This trend could guide the development of new app features or content to align with customer demands. As a result, trend analysis allows CX teams to position their company as a relevant business that understands modern customer needs.

Targeted Outreach

CX teams leverage social media intelligence to identify specific demographics for targeted outreach. Positive interactions with these groups can strengthen loyalty and turn satisfied customers into brand advocates. For example, your CX team can identify the top influencers frequently mentioning your brand and contact them for a collaboration.

Social Media Intelligence Tools

1. Pearl-Plaza
2. Mentionlytics
3. Hootsuite
4. Sprout Social
5. Brandwatch
6. Sprinklr

A social media intelligence tool makes it easy to better understand customer expectations. It handles everything from social media monitoring to data analysis. Here are six of the best tools to help you choose the right one for your business needs.

Pearl-Plaza

Pearl-Plaza’s XI Platform software offers a comprehensive social media intelligence solution. Unlike other platforms, it lets you control how frequently you want to pull and analyze data from platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X. This level of control is key to building rich customer experience datasets.

The XI Platform also leverages sentiment analysis to provide insights into customer feelings around your brand. This analysis helps you identify disgruntled customers so that you can work on retaining them before it’s too late. In the XI Platform, you can also track trending keywords that can help you identify the biggest impacts on your customer experience. 

The ability to track keywords and brand mentions means you can keep an eye on competitor activity. This competitive analysis empowers your CX teams to learn from their strengths and capitalize on their weaknesses. 

For example, if your competitor is going through a PR crisis due to a recent data breach, you can use this opportunity to gain a competitive edge. Your marketing teams could communicate the superiority of your data protection technology.

Finally, Pearl-Plaza’s social media intelligence tool enables high-quality lead generation. The insights gained from data analysis can highlight user profiles interested in your brand or offerings. 

By targeting these profiles with effective marketing, you can convert them into valuable customers. Similarly, the tool can help you identify top influencers in your space so that you can work with them to boost your brand reputation.

Mentionlytics

Mentionlytics allows businesses to monitor and analyze conversations on social media. Key features include real-time sentiment analysis, multi-channel monitoring, and competitor comparison reports. These features help companies make data-driven decisions to stay competitive and improve customer experiences.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a social media intelligence platform that combines data collection and analysis. Its Listening Basics feature allows businesses to track keywords and hashtags on social media channels. CX teams using Hootsuite to manage social media can leverage the Pearl-Plaza integration to monitor comments and reviews in one place. The integration helps filter out the best reviews and share them on social media to enhance online reputation.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a versatile platform that helps brands track and analyze social media conversations in real-time. Its standout feature is a trend-identifying tool that generates a word cloud highlighting topics relevant to the brand and industry. This trend analysis is helpful for staying competitive and managing customer interactions.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch uses advanced search options to help CX teams monitor vast amounts of social media conversations. It also enables trend analysis, influencer identification, and crisis management. It offers multilingual support to help businesses with multiple global locations manage their social media presence.

Sprinklr

Sprinklr is a social media management tool that enables businesses to track mentions, trends, and competitor activity. It uses AI algorithms to perform sentiment analysis on user-generated content. This analysis helps brands understand customer emotions and tailor their marketing strategy accordingly.

Get Better Insights to Transform Your Customer Experience with Pearl-Plaza

Your social media channels are a treasure trove of customer experiences. Unlocking this data can help you win over customers, move past competitors, and boost your bottom line. Pearl-Plaza’s social media intelligence tool gives you the key to access and analyze this valuable data. Schedule a product tour today to see how it can transform social media management for your brand.

These statistics show that there is no standard for where a CX team should live within your organization. To accurately place a CX team, you need to have a firm understanding of what CX teams do, what the customer experience goals of your organization are, and where those two overlap. 

What Is A CX Team?

A CX team is a group of customer experience professionals who work to improve customer experience by sharing customer insights throughout the organization. They analyze customer feedback, customer journeys, and more to get the most up-to-date information about the current customer experience and where it can be improved. 

Who Is On A CX Team?

The number of employees on a CX team and their respective titles will vary depending on the company. For example, a company that just established a CX team will have fewer employees than a company with an enterprise-wide CX team. 

Regardless, the core team members of a CX team are: 

• CX Managers: Oversee strategy and execution.
• Data Analysts: Dive deep into customer data to uncover actionable insights.
• Journey Designers: Map out customer interactions to identify gaps and opportunities.
• VoC Specialists: Ensure customer feedback is heard and acted upon.

What Skills Are Needed on A CX Team?

Members of a CX team need to be versatile employees who can examine different types of data. These employees must be able to research, analyze, and prevent all customer-related findings to organizational stakeholders. A recent study of CX teams said the three most common skills of employees on a CX team are: 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Project management

What Skills Will Be Needed On A CX Team In the Future?

To keep up with ever-evolving customer expectations, CX teams will need employees who can grow and ensure that an organization can still be successful. The three skills that CX team employees need to have in the future are: 

• Data science or analytics
• Business case development
• Inclusive design/accessibility testing

These skills reflect changes in the customer experience market and what is going to needed of organizations to stay successful.

How to Build a CX Team

Building an effective CX team requires careful planning and alignment with your organization’s goals and customer needs. Follow these steps to ensure you assemble a team that will drive meaningful results: 

1. Secure leadership buy-in
2. Define the team’s purpose and goals
3. Identify the right roles and skills
4. Select the right tools and technology
5. Establish clear processes
6. Foster cross-department collaboration
7. Continuously train and develop the team
8. Measure and Optimize

1. Secure Leadership Buy-In

For a CX team to succeed, you need the full support of senior leadership. The executives must understand the importance of a CX team and be willing to provide the necessary resources. In this step, you will also decide which executive leader the CX team will report to. 

2. Define the Team’s Purpose and Goals

Before you can hire and assign roles to employees, you need to clearly define your CX team’s mission. Determine what customer challenges the team will address, how success will be measured, and how the team aligns with broader business goals. Examples of CX team goals include: 

• Increasing customer retention by improving satisfaction
• Increase customer acquisition by improving the customer journey
• Driving higher Net Promoter Scores (NPS) through targeted strategies

Clearly defined goals will guide the hiring process and set the foundation for CX success. 

3. Identify the Right Roles and Skills

With the purpose of your CX team defined, you can now begin the hiring process. Your CX team should include diverse roles that collectively address all aspects of the customer experience. Common roles on a CX team include:

• CX Manager
• Data Analyst
• Customer Journey Designer
• VoC Specialist 

In addition to technical skills, look for individuals who can perform qualitative and quantitative research, possess great communication skills, and are experienced in project management. 

4. Select the Right Tools and Technology

In order to give your CX team the best chance to succeed, you need to have the right tools at your disposal. These tools might include Voice of the Customer platform, journey mapping software, or data analytics tools. 

Pearl-Plaza’s customer experience platform is an all-in-one solution that lets you collect and connect customer experience data in every format across every customer interaction. Pearl-Plaza’s integrated CX approach helps organizations realize ROI in just 12 months, which is more than twice as fast as the industry average.

5. Establish Clear Processes

It is important to develop workflows to guide a CX team’s activities. For example, you will need to define how customer feedback will be collected, analyzed, and shared. You will also need to create a process for collaborating with other departments to address CX challenges across the organization. 

6. Foster Cross-Department Collaboration

CX teams don’t operate in isolation. They must collaborate with other departments, including marketing, sales, product development, and customer service. Encourage open communication and shared accountability by hosting regular meetings to align on customer-centric strategies, using collaborative tools to ensure visibility, and more. 

7. Continuously Train and Develop the Team

The customer experience market is constantly changing. It is important to invest in skill development. This can be done by attending customer experience events, training on new tools and technologies, and getting certifications in CX methodologies.  

8. Measure and Optimize Performance

Being able to measure the performance of a CX team against customer experience KPIs is crucial for the longevity of a CX team. Regularly review these metrics and gather team feedback to refine processes and improve outcomes. 

CX Team Challenges

Although they are important to the success of an organization, even the best CX teams do not come without challenges. These challenges can affect CX teams across all organizations, here are the main ones to be aware of: 

Lack of Executive Support

Over 40% of CX teams in an organization that prioritizes CX say they do not have consistent executive support. This suggests that despite the organization’s overall commitment to enhancing customer experience, there remains a significant gap in the backing and resources that these teams receive from higher management, which can ultimately hinder their effectiveness and the overall success of CX initiatives.

Inconsistent Business Case Development

A recent study found that only 22% of CX decision-makers make a business case for customer experience for every project or initiative and that only a third of them make a business case for major initiatives. 

In order CX teams to become an integral part of the organization, it is important to make business cases for all initiatives on how they will impact the customer experience at your organization. 

Misaligned Priorities

When prioritizing customer experience initiatives, most CX teams primarily concentrate on customer impact. However, almost half of CX teams often overlook three important criteria: return on investment, feasibility, and risk. To gain and maintain the support of key stakeholders within the organization, CX teams need to give more attention to these three factors.

Considering ROI is vital for justifying CX efforts to key stakeholders concerned about any initiative’s financial implications. Assessing feasibility includes evaluating the existing operational capabilities and potential barriers that could hinder the execution of the initiatives. Lastly, risk assessment is an essential component that cannot be neglected. Every initiative carries inherent risks that could impact customer satisfaction, brand reputation, or financial performance.

Lastly, risk assessment is an essential component that cannot be neglected. Every initiative carries inherent risks that could impact customer satisfaction, brand reputation, or financial performance.

By considering ROI, feasibility, and risk alongside customer impact, CX teams can enhance their strategic planning. This comprehensive approach not only helps secure the support of key stakeholders but also ensures that CX initiatives are sustainable and aligned with the broader business objectives.

Where Should CX Teams Report?

Regardless of where your CX team lives, the team must remain unbiased and have the purview to work cross-functionally to drive collaboration and break down silos. Without that organizational freedom and neutrality, the team’s efforts are already handcuffed, and the chances of CX success are greatly diminished.

While many companies have added a seat at the table for a Chief Customer Officer (CCO) or Chief Experience Officer (CXO) in recent years, we still see most CX functions report to either marketing (the CMO) or operations (the COO). There are pros and cons to each of these reporting relationships:

The Pros and Cons of Your CX Team Reporting to Marketing & the CMO: 

Pros:

• Tied More Closely to the brand promise of the organization (since CX is the fulfillment of that promise)
• Tied more closely to the communication function. Too many CX functions don’t think about the role communication plays in the overall experience, but this is where the customer expectations get set
• Part of a more holistic view of the company and the customer journey
• Marketing (or strategy) is more likely to consider the experience of the future as opposed to only today’s experience

Cons:

• May be too far removed from the actual frontline customer interactions, so it can be more difficult to implement change
• Often too closely tied to marketing’s priorities and budget
• Can marketing enforce an effective closed-loop process if that work happens elsewhere in the organization?
• Marketing is often more focused on customer acquisition and top-of-funnel activities

The Pros and Cons of Your CX Team Reporting to Operations & the COO:

Pros:

• More closely tied to frontline customer interactions
• Typically has good success with enforcing a strong closed-loop process (if staffed and funded properly)
• Operations typically focused and measured on customer retention

Cons:

• Unless digital and call centers report to the COO, the program can get too focused on in-person or physical interactions
• Can be too focused on break/fix of today’s experience and not focused on overall CX strategy, process redesign, or experience design. Programs can get very tactical
• Susceptible to budget cuts and quarterly targets, whereas CX tends to be a medium-to-long term proposition

The Pros and Cons of Your CX Team Reporting to Executives Such as the CEO:

Pros:

• Easier alignment to executive goals and buy-in
• Budget is set aside specifically for one purpose and can have less constraints
• Easier to build relationships around CX with each department to break down silos

Cons:

• Difficult to get all departments aligned to taking action as they can be seen as an outsider
• More difficult to be in synch with the day-to-day business rhythm
• Focus often on medium- or long-term initiatives while peers focus on quarterly results

CX Team Best Practices  

While the focuses and goals of CX teams can change from organization to organization, certain things will set you up for success regardless of your objectives. Here are some best practices to ensure your CX team can succeed in any environment: 

Democratize Data

Democratizing data is an important step for protecting your teams’ time and resources, and it can be performed at any stage of CX maturity! 

Invest the time needed with key stakeholders to explain the importance of customer experience, co-create dashboards, and reduce any ambiguity about CX programs. By spreading the responsibility between team members throughout your business, you will save time both now and down the line with fewer emails, more empowered colleagues, and more visibility of your hard work. 

Leverage Available Resources 

Technology alone won’t help with demonstrating a return on investment. The most effective programs have a strategic partner to help map the initial CX framework, discover those actionable insights and point out the cost savings along the way.

You need a motivated team behind yours to design the roadmap of experience management success. Best practices show that the financial impact of the CX capability is outlined in the onboarding process, tested and controlled along the way, and measured and reported quarterly.

Create CX Champions

Take time upfront to educate teammates on the importance of customer experience and ask for volunteers to champion such initiatives across various departments. The more stakeholders invested in a CX program, the more time practitioners will have to delegate responsibilities across a business.

See which people in your business are organically gravitating toward your CX program and formalize their role as a CX champion. Empower these individuals to access the CX data anytime, anyplace to drive action.

Level-Up Your Dashboards

When you have a customer experience dashboard that is intuitive and easy to understand, stakeholders can easily circulate them within the organization. An effective dashboard is designed to guide the user, not overload the user with data. 

We recommend you follow this design structure where possible:

• Main KPI: Where are we? How has our performance changed over time?
• Main KPI & Main Segment: Who/what should we focus on?
• Sub KPIs: What is contributing to our core metric?
• High-Level Text Analytics: What overall are our customers telling us?
• Verbatim: What are our customers actually saying about their experience?
• Deep Analysis: Splitting KPIs up by pre-pop data.

To learn more about best practices and how to succeed as a CX team, download the checklist below:

How to Craft a Max-Impact CX Strategy for a Small CX Team

Having a small CX team doesn’t mean you can’t make a big difference. What it does mean is that you have to use your time wisely! Download this checklist for step-by-step instructions on how to realize four strategies designed specifically for CX teams like yours.

How to Craft a Max-Impact CX Strategy for a Small CX Team

Having a small CX team doesn’t mean you can’t make a big difference. What it does mean is that you have to use your time wisely! Download this checklist for step-by-step instructions on how to realize four strategies designed specifically for CX teams like yours.

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Customizing CX Team Organization: Considerations for Success

Regarding the reporting relationship of the CX function, one size doesn’t fit all. Every organization, leadership dynamic, employee culture, and business is different. We mentioned above that we have led CX, reporting to the CMO, reporting to the COO, and as an independent function. What we learned is that it can be successful in any of these reporting relationships, though we suggest it has a head start if it reports into the predominant power core of the organization.

Some companies are operations-led, others are sales & marketing-led, while others are product-led. Tying CX to the true cultural and power core of the company, though it brings some of the bias mentioned above, aligns it better with the core of the company.

Regardless of where your CX function reports, there are key organizational elements that must be present and the CX leader also has to have certain key skills, strengths and characteristics for it to be successful.

Improve Your CX Team with Pearl-Plaza

If your customer experience (CX) team is just starting out or expanding an existing team, Pearl-Plaza is the top choice for a CX partner. With over 50 years of experience across various industries and a best-in-class solution, Pearl-Plaza will guide your company in the right direction. To discover how Pearl-Plaza can benefit your organization, schedule a demo today!