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Listen to Your Contact Center Now for CX Insights Beyond the Pandemic

With the impact that the current pandemic has had on all our lives customer experience rightfully takes a backseat to concerns for health and safety when directly impacted by pandemic challenges. This is, however, a journey from which we all emerge into a world that has changed.  

But amid current uncertainty there is CX opportunity, as noted within the Bain article: “Put Your Customers and Employees First during the Coronavirus Crisis”. CX Pros can “Build promoters for life among customers and employees” in part with efforts that “Monitor customer usage and feedback and adjust the value proposition and customer experience accordingly.”

The reality is that CX Pros can effectively listen to customers and frontline employees now and when we emerge from the pandemic and uncover a treasure trove of unique insight from contact conversations – which are a frequently overlooked CX resource that is invaluable in times of trouble and beyond.

Forrester has noted Don’t Conduct CX Surveys As Usual During The COVID-19 Crisis. “Demonstrate that you aren’t tone-deaf to the unprecedented situation your customers face.” This suggests that you must tread lightly when soliciting insight from your customers. In fact, Forrester recommends paring back survey questions and making sure you do not inadvertently set unrealistic expectations for follow-up. This welcome advice unfortunately drops the ceiling on what customer insight can be gathered.

Does this mean that now is the time for CX Pros to sit back and wait? Results from other challenging circumstances might indicate this is not the right course of action. Forrester research, cited by McKinsey, in “Adapting customer experience in the time of coronavirus” spotlights a clear advantage for those organizations that maintain a focus on customer experience even when the economy takes a sharp dive.

This analogy is not to suggest a pandemic is the same as a recession. However, it does draw a parallel between “mega-level” challenges and how CX professionals can have bottom line impact even when faced with exceptional circumstances.

The trick is to take another look at how, where and from whom you gather actionable CX intelligence. Now is the time to consider new possibilities for understating your customers and effectively operationalizing that insight with a new perspective.

For CX Pros the contact center is generally not the first stop for customer experience insight. In many cases, contact center managers are frequently focused on objectives other than CX. It’s not easy to get the data you are looking for. But it’s where you want to go for several reasons:

It’s where your customers are going - According to ATT, as noted in a New York Times article, “Phone calls have made a comeback in the pandemic. While the nation’s biggest telecommunications providers prepared for a huge shift toward more internet use from home, what they didn’t expect was an even greater surge in plain old voice calls”. That shift includes business calls. Even before COVID, contact centers realized that digital channels were gaining share, but telephone call duration was generally not shrinking. That was due to more complex calls being handled by agents for callers that failed to resolve their questions or tasks via self-service channels. The CX takeaway is that contact center conversations are a rich source of customer insight in bad times and good times.

It’s unsolicited qualitative data - You don’t have to worry about framing your questions properly or survey sample management. Conversational insight will also include elements of what was said as well as how it was said. With capable analytics technology you can focus in on what matters most, with emotional intensity when applicable.

Coverage - Contact center conversations are a treasure trove of meaningful data. Most contact centers record every call and maintain records for every chat and email correspondence. Imagine the difference between a CX data set that covers 100% of interactions with your organization and what your best survey response rate might be.

It’s timely - Data is available immediately after a contact center conversation is completed. This is especially important for changing conditions and for identifying the unexpected for more effective root cause analysis.

It’s the voice of your brand - Capable speech analytics solutions discern between customer and agent speakers. Speech analytics will reveal emotional CX drivers as expressed by agents as well as customers. CX impactful detail includes understanding how agents engage with customers with metrics that benchmark empathy, ownership and much more.

It’s already there - Call recordings are an essential contact center element. That means you might already have CX impactful data sitting unused in a call recording repository. If your contact center uses speech analytics already, that’s great! Work with you contact center manager to acquire the data. If not, your contact center manager can still assist by providing access to some audited calls.

To learn more about how listening to the contact center during – and after – the current crisis can fuel your CX efforts, download our whitepaper: “Listening to the Contact Center to Overcome Pandemic Challenges”.