3 ways to deliver real value from Voice of the Customer insight
Given the vital importance of understanding what consumers want, most brands focus heavily on listening to the Voice of the Customer (VoC) in some form. Research carried out for Eptica by Engage Business Media found that 78% of companies measure customer satisfaction, and that over a third (36%) have a full VoC system in place. A further 50% of brands are looking to invest in VoC solutions in the future.
However, the research also found that brands struggle to get real value out of their programs. This echoes the findings of the Temkin Group – it discovered that only 24% of companies felt they were making changes to their operations based on VoC results. How can brands transform this and get real business value from the Voice of the Customer? Based on our experience we see three areas to focus on:
1. Understand all interactions all along the customer journey
Many VoC programs still rely heavily on customers filling in surveys sent by the company. This brand-solicited feedback approach has a number of issues. Respondents tend to be either those who’ve had a great experience and are very happy or those that are extremely upset. This leads to an inaccurate picture of customer experience, with little opportunity to use findings to make operational changes. It also ignores the vast majority of interactions within the customer journey – Eptica estimates that there are 463.5 million monthly contacts between consumers and brands, through channels such as email and chat, all providing a gold mine of information when analyzed. Brands also need to understand indirect feedback, such as mentions on social media and review sites and incorporate these sources into their VoC programs.
New technology, such as Eptica’s vecko is crucial here. By using artificial intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Text Analytics and machine learning technology, vecko is able to automatically analyze customer conversations across every digital channel, as well as indirect and survey feedback. The result? A more complete, actionable picture of what customers are thinking and feeling, helping brands understand the reason why, and therefore take action to solve issues.
2. Automate deep insight in real-time
We live in a 24x7 world and consumers don’t want to wait for anything, particularly not for their problems to be solved. Fail to act quickly and they’ll simply leave for a rival – probably after complaining on social media and to family and friends. That’s why brands need to be continuously analyzing interactions in real-time in order to understand both individual issues and wider patterns. Customer expectations are always rising, meaning that your CX has to improve continuously if you want to keep pace and position yourself as a leader.
Through its AI, vecko enables brands to automatically turn real-time information into actionable customer intelligence. It also deepens insight by allowing you to successfully analyse emotions in customer conversations, looking beyond keywords to drive greater engagement with consumers.
3. Democratize customer intelligence
Too many VoC programs are based in silos, with limited sharing of the results across the organization. For example, the Eptica/Engage research found that while customer insight is shared with marketing in 79% of companies, and customer service in 82%, just 38% shared with e-commerce and 21% with teams running physical shops. Customer insight is too vital to business success to be trapped in silos. It needs to be democratized so that it is quickly delivered to the right department or team to make rapid changes. Customers see you as one business – they expect their views to be heard and acted upon, however they interact with you.
To ensure that customer intelligence is available across the business, vecko is built on a unique licensing model. Insight can be shared with unlimited users as standard, with its easy to use, intuitive dashboards providing role-specific customer intelligence to inform actions and decision making. This helps generate immediate and long term ROI and puts customer insight where it needs to be – at the heart of your business.
Voice of the Customer programs clearly need to evolve if they are to deliver the step change in value that brands require if they are to thrive. That means embracing new, artificial intelligence-based solutions that deeply analyze the complete customer voice and share the resulting insight across the business. Eptica’s newly-launched vecko software enables a new era of customer intelligence – to find out more about our innovative solution download our whitepaper or visit https://www.vecko.com/en/
