By Oscar Alban
Principal Market Consultant
Verint® Witness Actionable SolutionsTM
For years, organizations have struggled with measuring and analyzing how effectively they serve their customers. And since the contact center is the hub of customer service delivery, it’s not surprising that many organizations use contact center metrics, such as average speed of answer or first call resolution, to track how successfully they deliver service.
Make no mistake about it, these metrics are important. But they’re internally focused measures, and as such, they’re a step removed from the customer. And they can mislead contact centers into thinking—like the hapless emperor in Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale—that all is well when it’s plain to the outside world that something is quite wrong, indeed!
To get to the bottom of this perception issue, organizations need to augment traditional metrics with direct customer feedback to gain first-hand, actionable intelligence. Many customer interactions present an opportunity to solicit feedback—good news for organizations intent on capturing the “voice of the customer.” But while different communications channels, distributed service centers, and internal processes and systems all capture fragments of the customer experience, they typically don’t provide a comprehensive picture of customers’ perceptions.
By implementing a customer feedback management solution that can be integrated into existing back-office, contact center software, and CRM systems, organizations can truly listen to captured customer interactions to gain real-time perspective on issues and drivers impacting sales, service, and the customer experience.
Customer Insight, Corporate Intelligence
If you want to know what your customers are really thinking, ask them. Today’s customer feedback solutions can enable customers to express what’s working, vent about what’s not, and share their perspectives on how you can make them happier consumers—as well as provide you with a goldmine of valuable intelligence.
With a customer feedback management solution, your company can collect, report on, and incorporate customer-driven information, performance data, and satisfaction level metrics. More specifically, customer feedback can help organizations:
• Make informed business decisions by capturing and analyzing customer feedback—and the context in which it was provided.
• Gain increased visibility into customer service processes and performance based on the specific people, products, and processes that impact the customer experience.
• Measure business and revenue drivers in detail—including customer loyalty—through net promoter scores and other metrics.
• Improve first-call resolution rates, decrease escalations, and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Move beyond sampling to capture statistically valid, census-level data—even with large numbers of customers and multiple sites—across all contact channels, including IVR, Web and email.
• Reference recorded calls from customer feedback and optionally integrate survey results with other workforce optimization metrics.
How Does it Work?
Customer feedback management engages customers immediately after their interactions with an agent over IVR, Web, and email. More than just a survey system, it enables organizations to gather data on products, processes, staff performance, and customer satisfaction levels in real time. As a result, you can identify and measure the drivers of customer behavior, along with specific areas for improvement.
For example, you can use data to calculate your net promoter score—a metric that shows the percentage of promoters (customers who would recommend your products and services to others) minus the percentage of detractors (customers who cut back on their purchases and warn others to avoid doing business with you). Net promoter scores can be a powerful way to gauge customer satisfaction and the effectiveness of your customer loyalty programs.
Because customer feedback surveys are intelligent, context-based, and timely, they can engage customers and deliver response rates far greater than those obtained through traditional, one size-fits-all questionnaires. As a result, your organization can move beyond mere sampling to capture meaningful data, even with large numbers of customers and multiple sites.
With customer feedback, you can gain a valuable “outside in” perspective that traditional contact center metrics just don’t provide. It’s an important step that can help you correct problems, capitalize on opportunities, and better align your expectations and perceptions of corporate image with those of your customers.
About the Author
Oscar Alban is principal global market consultant for Verint Witness Actionable Solutions. With more than 20 years of contact center experience, he regularly speaks at industry events and performs consulting engagements at customer sites around the world.