In this digital age, data is everywhere. Take customer service, for example. More and more people use online solutions to contact companies, making it easy to identify them and keep track of their requests and the information they provide. All this data is available to you, but are you really able to use it to get a deeper knowledge of your customers? Not long ago, two-thirds of organizations said they did not possess the necessary resources to analyze all the consumer data they collect.
Customer experience analytics may sound complicated, but there are efficient technologies that help you transform raw customer information into valuable insights. Among the numerous possibilities and technologies, we are presenting four in this blog post. They use different techniques and operate at different levels of complexity, but they all give deep insights into your customers’ behavior and offer a competitive edge.
1. Back-office integration
The most evident way of leveraging your data is integrating and sharing what you already have. As a matter of fact, your CRM and back-office tools hold a wealth of information about your customers: personal information, purchase history, interaction with customer service, etc. It’s a very valuable asset that can be used by your customer service associates. But do they have access to it?
When associates answer a request, it is very important for them to have all relevant information at their fingertips. This improves handling time, of course, but also the associate experience as their work is facilitated — no more searching different tools or asking the customer to repeat information they already provided. The customer experience is also improved because they appreciate a prompt resolution to their questions.
When choosing your tool of back-office integration, make sure it’s an agile and omnichannel case management and orchestration solution. Different stakeholders should have access to all channels, and you should be able to configure the tool to give access precisely to the type of information they need. Another important point: make sure the tool offers the loopback of new information into the back office, so that the customer data is always up to date.
2. Voice of the Customer
What better way to get to know your customers than asking them directly? You can find out what they need, why they need it and what it takes to improve loyalty and lifetime value by collecting their feedback.
Surveys can be created for all interaction channels, and there are many tools to set them up. Make sure the one you choose is truly omnichannel. The solution should also include intelligent automation capabilities, enabling you to systematically send a questionnaire after each interaction and on each channel, be it post-call, SMS, email or via an app.
Ideally, the tech solution is complemented by VOC expertise to help you ask the key questions to understand your customers’ behavioral patterns, and meet unmet needs. It’s crucial to analyze the answers and turn the data into actionable insights. This deep understanding of customer needs is the perfect starting point to maximize customer lifetime value and create new, appealing offers and products — and gets you a step ahead of the competition.
3. Text & speech analysis
You can ask your customers questions or listen to what they say when interacting with your customer service. Whether they contact you by phone or message, there are technologies that enable you to get valuable data out of all conversations, such as text and speech analysis.
For voice interactions, audio is transcribed and both types of communication are then analyzed to recognize a customer’s sentiment based on the language used during the interaction. This offers a deep insight into the customer’s experience and shows how to optimize it. The analysis accurately maps customer emotion and sentiment to the point where analytics become predictive and you can give the customer what they want or need before they’ve articulated it. And technology is evolving fast — you might soon be able to detect sarcasm, too!
Brands have yet to make the best out of this technology. Only one out of four companies say they fully leverage the insights they gain from speech and text analysis. To make the most of this data, you need the right partner offering a solution combining technology and interaction analytics that are adapted to your brand’s specific context.
4. Social listening
Social media has become part of our everyday life, and consumers use it more and more to communicate with brands, too. There’s a wealth of information to be gathered that can show the needs of consumers as well as the image they have of your brand.
You may already use social media as a customer service channel. It’s easy to get data from the interactions with your customers that way. The same is true for comments in which your brand is tagged. This data is tremendously useful and can be leveraged for the customer insights that give you a competitive edge. But if your brand is mentioned without being tagged, it is a lot harder to retrieve.
That’s where social listening comes in. There are technologies that allow you to access this kind of information. They can even pick up weak signals and give an in-depth idea of what consumers think of your brand, expect from you — and dislike. As for the other technologies, be sure to choose a partner that also offers the social intelligence — guidance, interpretation and analytics — that transforms the raw data into a valuable asset, for strategic decision making as well as crisis prevention, as negative elements are immediately detected and can be addressed before they escalate.
Ahead of your competition
With technologies evolving fast, transforming data into actionable insights is getting easier. Choose the techniques that are the most relevant for your brand, and choose the right partner to make the most of these tools to get the best possible customer insights and stay ahead of your competition.
To learn more about how to make every interaction an opportunity to gather insights, check out our analytics solutions or contact us!