With competition fiercer than ever before, the ability to fully understand and cater to customer needs isn’t just ideal, it’s imperative. Enter the concept of a 360 Degree Customer View — a strategy that enables businesses to compile a comprehensive profile of their customers by gathering data from various touchpoints.

Understanding the holistic journey of your customer has never been more critical. Here’s why a 360 Degree Customer View could be the game-changer in how businesses like yours interact with, engage, and ultimately satisfy customers.

The Cornerstones of a 360 Degree Customer View

The essence of a 360 Degree Customer View lies in its all-encompassing perspective. It considers every interaction — past and present — that a customer has with a business, creating a detailed narrative and a clearer understanding of their behaviors and preferences.

A Unified Customer Profile

A standard 360 Degree profile might include basic contact information, purchase history, customer service interactions, online behavior, and social media activity. By breaking down silos and integrating data across departments, customer service managers are empowered with knowledge that can personalize service, anticipate needs, and align services or products more closely with customer expectations.

Insightful Data Analysis

Being data-driven doesn’t just mean collecting information—it means turning that data into actionable insights. Customer service managers can track trends and patterns in behavior that may indicate areas of opportunity or require intervention.

Enhanced Customer Relationship Management

A complete view of the customer enables you to engage in meaningful ways. Personalized marketing, tailored recommendations, and proactive service can be achieved with this data-backed approach. Ultimately, this results in deeper customer loyalty, higher retention rates, and an improved bottom line for the business.

Implementing a 360 Degree Customer View

Building a 360 Degree Customer View requires a clear strategy, appropriate technology, and a company-wide commitment to customer-centricity.

Cut Across Silos with Integrated Systems

Data silos within a company can restrict information flow and create an incomplete picture of the customer. Integrating customer data into a single repository is essential. CRM systems, data analytics tools, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are often employed to provide a unified view.

Emphasize on Privacy and Security

In collecting customer data, adhering to privacy laws and maintaining data security is paramount. Customers are more willing to share their information with companies they trust. Be transparent about data use and safeguard their information with strong data protection measures.

Invest in Training and Culture

Equipping your team with the knowledge and tools to leverage customer insights is just as important as the technology itself. Promoting a culture that values every customer interaction can turn your data into an engine for customer-led growth.

By deploying a 360 Degree Customer View, customer service managers can fine-tune their approach to service and support, ensuring that their customers are not just heard, but understood.

360 Degree View: The Panoramic Approach to Customer Satisfaction

The 360 Degree Customer View isn’t just about data aggregation; it encapsulates a strategic approach to customer engagement by considering their complete relationship with your brand. In this age of customer empowerment, adapting to a Customer-Centric, Insight-Driven model is your ticket to setting your business apart and achieving unassailable customer satisfaction.

For customer service managers looking to drive success, remember that the sum of customer interactions defines their overall experience. By mirroring a 360 Degree Customer View in your operational philosophy, you create a competitive edge and foster long-term allegiance to your brand.

As CX tops the business agenda, there’s never been a better time to master the art of listening. Jade Turley at Calabrio shows us how with a simple step-by-step guide.

Delivering the right customer experience (CX) is typically a top priority for businesses for good reason. According to international outsourcers CGS, 80% of consumers feel more emotionally connected to a brand when customer service solves their problem and 30% of consumers are willing to pay more for excellent service, a 6% increase over 2019. As a result, improving service levels is the top goal for 38% of contact centres in 2022.

There has never been a better time to truly listen to customers. Enhance and future-proof your customer service strategy with an effective Voice of the Customer (VoC) programme that captures, analyses, and reports on all customer feedback. At the same time, help transform your agents into brand guardians with the power to influence customer perceptions of your products and services. After all, 97% of consumers say customer service interactions have an impact on customer loyalty.

5 Ways to Improve Your VoC Programme

Follow these tips and techniques to stay one step ahead of the competition:

1. Start with the basics—even the most advanced VoC strategies benefit from agent commentary so listen to your front-line team. After all, they know your customers best and often notice ongoing issues before their managers. Introduce easy-to-use platforms for agents to share critical, evolving issues in real-time. Next, understand why customers are contacting you in the first place to highlight crucial improvement opportunities. It need not be a complicated affair. Three or four agents keeping written notes of popular reasons for contact are sufficient for smaller contact centres whereas large, complex operations might require more intelligent processes, such as ticket tagging and contact categorisation along with intelligent, automated technology to match. 
For example, speech analytics can indicate repeated phrases used in customer conversations to identify new or common failures within particular customer journeys. Meanwhile, sentiment analysis is able to predict customer emotions after a contact. If the emotion is negative, contact centres can proactively reach out and make amends.

2. Get to the heart of the problem—map out specific customer journeys and use VoC research to pinpoint moments that matter. At these vital touchpoints, get to grips with the people, processes, and technology involved in supporting the customer. Then, design new solutions. Focus on quick wins that bring instant value such as setting up proactive alerts and reach-outs, self-service, and online content enhancements, or coaching and policy changes. Above all, be collaborative and encourage other departments to join in. They may offer alternative solutions to improve customer outcomes, producing a win-win situation.

3. Gain insight across the entire customer journey—by gleaning information from an array of sources, not just endless surveys. Consider indirect feedback sources such as data and metrics from other departments, conversation recordings and transcripts, social listening and reviews on third-party sites, and customer actions on your company website.
Why not introduce an AI business intelligence (BI) solution to evaluate 100% of interactions? This brings a wealth of insights to help craft new responses and develop efficient processes that resolve customer issues. By collecting and structuring data from across the whole business, BI solutions quickly convert customer feedback into visually appealing information, highlighting new customer trends. This provides a single source of truth which every department can use to deliver better customer experiences.

4. Reduce intensity—dissatisfied customers often begin their interaction with an angry intensity. If agents gradually bring this down during the early stages, they can naturally calm the customer. To do so, coach agents to match the customer’s pace, volume, and tone at the beginning of every conversation and slowly relax the intensity of each. That way, customers are more likely follow their lead.  Store and flag examples where agents use this technique well within an automated performance coaching system. This is excellent for equipping trainers with the tools to teach this method to other agents including new joiners.

5. Acknowledge, empathise, and refocus—when a customer vents their frustration or is angry, it is easy for agents to become flustered and forget the first rule of customer service—to listen closely. Keep agents calm and composed by reviewing interactions with dissatisfied customers and offering resilience coaching. Discuss what the agent did well and isolate best practices. Typically, these include showing acknowledgement and empathy:

• Acknowledgement is not just saying, “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” Instead, the agent must take time and refer back to the issue. As an example, perhaps the problem is a late delivery. In this case, the agent could reply, “Late deliveries are not acceptable.”
• Follow this up with empathy. Tailoring a statement, such as, “It sounds very frustrating,” to the situation often works well, allowing agents to clarify that they were listening closely and are human too.
• Then, focus on the positive and the resolution. The phrase: “Let’s see how we can put this right,” may do the trick.

Blend process and technology with the right training to build an effective VoC programme. For more ideas on how to master the art of listening, visit www.calabrio.com or download our latest report “State of the Contact Centre 2022: Empowering the contact centre as a brand guardian”.

About the Author

Jade Turley is Senior Business Intelligence Consultant at Calabrio.

Calabrio is a trusted ally to leading brands. The digital foundation of customer-centric contact centres, Calabrio helps enrich and interpret human interactions, empowering the contact centre as a brand guardian.

We maximise agent performance, exceed customer expectations, and boost workforce efficiency using connected data, AI-fuelled analytics, automated workforce management and personalised coaching.

Only Calabrio ONE unites workforce optimisation (WFO), agent engagement and business intelligence solutions into a true-cloud, fully integrated suite that adapts to your business.

Kate Kompelien, Executive Director of CX Strategy and Design at TTEC Digital, explains how to use VoC to understand your customer’s needs across the Total Experience. 

Consumers increasingly choose to do business with companies based on the experiences they provide. Eighty percent of consumers reported in a recent Salesforce survey that customer experience (CX) is as important to them as a company’s product or service. And, according to McKinsey, consumers are increasingly on the move: 75 percent of U.S. consumers have changed their shopping behavior or tried a new brand since the COVID-19 pandemic.

What can you do now to make sure your business and brand are living up to the great expectations of consumers? How can you connect with them before they post a public review, to make sure the experience you provide is not only competitive, but differentiating?

Start by listening to the voices of your customers. Establish a Voice of Customer (VoC) program or improve the one you have.

What is VoC? Voice of customer (VoC) means that an organization listens to its customers’ feedback across experiences to understand and then address their needs. It’s a way of keeping your finger on the pulse of customer needs, expectations, and preferences. A VoC program can help you understand the wants and needs of your customers across the Total Experience and align decision makers around where to invest to improve CX.

No matter the industry, a carefully orchestrated VoC program unlocks powerful benefits for companies and their customers. A VoC program helps identify where your business is excelling and where it misses the mark. It provides an opportunity to share customer experience performance throughout your organization, incentivize employees to put the customer first, and foster cross-functional alignment on decision-making and budget spend.

There are six essential steps to building an effective VoC program:

1. Define your Strategic Focus

While it’s important to gather a broad range of feedback and data from and about customers, one of the biggest mistakes organizations make when drafting VoC strategies is failing to create a clear objective for the program. Typically, VoC programs seek to understand what customers are experiencing daily, by using “listening posts” at various key touchpoints with those customers.

But how do you decide when and where to listen? Start by developing an understanding of the experience itself. What experience are you wanting to examine and improve? What issues are you seeking to solve? What channels are involved in delivering that experience? Once you have a stronger baseline understanding of the experience(s) in question, you can use that knowledge to map out the logistics of your listening posts.

2. Foster buy-in and engagement

It’s essential that key stakeholders, including your CEO, believe in the importance of listening to customers systematically and improving their experience. For organization leaders, buy-in involves a commitment to supporting the program and sustaining it until it is developed, recognizing that these programs build over time, and that you must commit to act in order to turn VoC insights into ROI.

Senior leaders, directors, middle managers, and on-the-ground staff in key departments must be willing to engage in the program, at various levels. Make sure people know their role in the execution of the program, and make sure to communicate with front-line employees, especially those who are customer-facing, from the onset of your planning. When building your team, choose an internal executive sponsor who will help steer the VoC effort and support its execution.

It is easy to build a listening program; it is much more difficult to ensure it is connected across functional and channel groups, that customer KPIs are measured with financial KPIs, and that action is taken on the findings. Buy-in upfront can help make sure all of these elements are connected and engaged in the process.

3. Build a VoC program with the customer in mind

VoC programs add another customer touchpoint with your brand in the broader customer experience ecosystem. Because you will be adding an extra step, and asking the consumer to participate, you’ll need to make your program as easy for them to use as possible.

Return to your plan for listening strategies and select those that fit best within your customers’ journey. Methods to consider are digital surveys, video surveys, data mining, accessing existing customer interactions, field conversations, interviewing customer-facing staff, and social media monitoring. To maximize the effectiveness of your data collection, consider your customers’ preferred communication channels. Decide if you will measure the customer’s overall experience (sometimes called the relationship aspect) and/or their experience with various interactions inside the customer journey (the transactional aspect). Consider how automation can assist your VoC program, and when and where human intervention makes more sense.

4. Plan to act on feedback

VoC programs are only as good as the actions that come after the listening. Too often, organizations go through the effort of conducting a VoC program, only to fail to act on the learnings and address customer concerns and implement improvements. If your new information is never used, the initial investment is wasted. Not only will the lack of action impact the ROI of the VoC program, it may amplify customer frustrations and alienation.

To avoid this, plan for how you will process the information and use it to solve the identified problem(s). Determine who will be empowered to act on insights collected through your VoC program. Actions may include duplicating and amplifying your strengths and/or identifying bright spots and making plans to replicate their success. Pinpoint your weaknesses and create plans for fixing them. A good goal is to identify two to three specific changes you will make to the business with each wave of VoC.

5. Coordinate technology partnerships

While it is certainly possible to conduct an effective VoC program with an internal-only team, it can be extremely helpful to augment your group with outside experts who know how to navigate a variety of VoC listening technologies using your contact center, CRM, conversational AI, and other parts of your business. Many internal teams simply don’t understand how to activate technology for the VoC program. An experienced outside partner can put together a personalized VoC solution that integrates with your existing technology platforms and seamlessly adds capabilities that will augment your strategy and maximize your results. The outside partner you select should have implementation expertise from many years of experience developing VoC programs, and detailed knowledge of VoC best practices, and has designed VoC programs from the ground up and assessed and improved existing VoC programs. Make sure to have them show you program outcomes they’ve delivered for other companies. Partners can be involved in any or all stages of VoC, including the ongoing management and maintenance of your VoC program.

6. Turn your VoC into action

With your strategy, implementation roadmaps, and technology know-how, you’ll be ready to act on your VoC program. Follow your plan, rely on your partners, lean on your internal sponsors, and deliver the program.

Asking your customers what they need and want from you sounds simple but is easier said than done. Taking a thoughtful, methodical approach will help you design and deploy effective VoC for your organization. After all, how can you get better if you don’t understand what’s wrong? Why wait until you see a bad review about your own CX? Ask your customers now to share their feedback directly with you, and then earn their business by doing something about it.

About the Author

Kate is Executive Director of CX Strategy and Design  at TTEC Digital, one of the largest global CX technology and services innovators. The company delivers leading CX technology and operational CX orchestration at scale. TTEC Digital’s 60,000 employees operate on six continents and bring technology and humanity together to deliver happy customers and differentiated business results.

As a business owner or customer service manager, you’re likely hyper-aware that customer feedback is the single-most critical factor in success. 

When you consider that your products, service, brand, and even your reputation rely predominantly on customer reviews and reactions – then you know how important it is to pay attention to what your audience is saying about your business.  With this in mind, here are five smart ways to more effectively collect customer feedback.

Automate Your Customer Operations

One of the most efficient and simple ways of capturing customer feedback is to implement the power of contact center technology.  This is highly specialized software that can automate all of your customer interactions.  Customer contact tech and customer call center software can be remarkably revealing in terms of identifying inquiries.  In turn, the data collected can inform your business team on how to improve, what to avoid, and what areas in business productivity need more attention.  Automating customer service inquiries will allow you to capture and analyze big customer data so that you can enhance product development and improve your business strategy.  Ultimately, automating your customer feedback with advanced technology can revolutionize your business operations.

Use Customer Surveys

This might seem like an old-fashioned technique to collect customer feedback, but it’s still effective.  Your business can choose from a long-form or short-form survey.  These can be done electronically by creating a form on your website.  An e-form on your website can absorb all the survey data and give you very telling analytics that gives you valuable information on what your customers want and if your business is slacking in certain areas.  The survey should invite your customers to answer specific inquiries that will illuminate your future choices about customer service, production, and other areas that may need improvement.  Considering many customers might be reluctant to take the time to complete surveys – you can work around this by incentivizing them to take your surveys.  Offer your customers a discount, a free consultation, or a free sample when they fill out your survey.

Implement a Virtual Suggestion Box

Installing a suggestion forum or suggestion board is similar to a suggestion box that might be found in a brick-and-mortar store.  The difference here is that your suggestion forum is installed on your website.  This can be done by installing a suggestion box or board widget in your content management system, which will then be displayed on your website.  This enables customers to leave suggestions, comments, and feedback directly on your website.  This information can be an incredibly useful and informative tool when understanding your customer’s wants and needs.

Send Your Customers a Letter

Sometimes it’s the down-to-earth, personalized tactics that win the most response.  If you’re not already, consider sending your customers an email with the goal of receiving feedback from them.  This is known as a transactional email.  These can be automated, but we recommend taking a personalized approach. Begin the email by thanking your customers for their purchase or subscription.  Then create a compelling message about how your company is committed to quality service, and encourage your customers to respond with their feedback.  While this is a grass-roots strategy for accessing customer responses, it can still be a powerful method to obtain valuable customer opinions.  In most instances, people appreciate a personal touch, and therefore this can be an effective way to encourage them to share their thoughts with you.

Be Accessible

Customers need to know that your business values and wants their feedback.  Therefore, it’s important to make every effort to make your business as accessible as possible.  Give your customers every opportunity to contact you so they can share their thoughts with your customer service team.  For instance, you can install a chatbot on your website, which gives users immediate access to your customer service representatives.  While chatbots alone aren’t an ideal customer service solution, they have been known to be illuminating in terms of learning more about customer behavior.

Lastly, have your company website, email, and phone number clearly positioned on your website. This makes it easier for customers to reach out and share their thoughts.  Ultimately, when you make your business exceedingly accessible, you have more opportunities to collect customer feedback.

If you want to deliver great customer service, you need a sold customer feedback program – one that’s based on the 4 principles outlined here.

Is your goal to deliver great customer service? That’s terrific! I like it. More importantly, your customers appreciate your ambition too!

To succeed you’ll need a feedback program that keeps you on course with customer service insights while pinpointing gaps and areas to improve.

What Can Customer Feedback Do?

When done correctly, customer feedback is a research-driven discipline that uncovers details that improve the customer experience. It explores customer successes, friction points, and missed opportunities. In addition, it keeps you on top of customers’ issues and it enables you to address those issues as they occur.

Quality feedback addresses tactical customer service questions such as:

• Did we completely answer your question?
• Was your product repaired to your satisfaction?

Quality feedback also handles strategic concerns like:

• What would make our customer service better than the competition?
• How can we position our customer service to increase sales?

A strong feedback program gives you accountability as well as a lens into the details that will supercharge the customer service you provide every day.

On to the principles…

Principle #1: Be Objective!

If your data fails to capture what’s really going on with your customer service, what’s the point? Many customer satisfaction surveys and other feedback methods suffer from uneven representation and bias.

As the saying goes “garbage in, garbage out”. Don’t base important customer service decisions on garbage! You need facts, not fiction. Guidelines for objectivity could fill an entire book, but here are three best practices:

Use an accurate sample: Ask yourself: How well does your sample represent your customer base? Your sample should be random, statistically valid, and representative. For example, if only one type of customer is responding to your tech support survey, perhaps those that had great experiences, your data will be skewed.

Eliminate bias: Remove leading statements, skewed scales, double-barreled questions, and other subjective constructs. Don’t ask questions like: “How satisfied were you with our service?” (This implies that the customer was at least somewhat satisfied.) Instead, ask neutral questions like: “How would you rate the quality of your service today?”

Ensure replicability: Any analyst working with your data should arrive at the same conclusions whether it’s coding, categorization, or assessments.

Principle #2: Use the Best Methods

Surveys may be the default method for gauging satisfaction with customer service, but sometimes there are better tools. Ask yourself what you need to know and match your methods to those objectives. Other methods include customer interviews, mystery shops, and customer service evaluations.

Recorded Customer Interviews: Give you an in-depth view of your customers’ expectations for service versus their actual lived experiences. They’re also the best way to uncover customer service issues you didn’t know to ask about.

Mystery Shops: Reveal real customer service insights regarding specific scenarios. They’re also an effective way to compare your customer service with that of your competitors.

Customer Service Evaluations: Quantify how well associates perform with their calls, emails and chats. Service evaluations are one of the few ways to get a statistically valid read on the quality of your customer communication.

Principle #3: Engage Your Customers

Surveys that are too long or ask irrelevant questions alienate your customers and distort your data. Keep customer feedback surveys relevant and short!

With your surveys this means:

Ask compelling questions: Write questions that are conversational so that customers feel at ease and want to share. Consider what words will engage your customers and what types of questions they are most likely to find worth their time.

Use dynamic logic to keep questions relevant: No customer is the same, applying branching logic allows customers to only answer questions that apply to them.

Add small tokens of appreciation such as gift cards and priority codes: By thanking customers for their time and effort, they’ll be more likely to give feedback about your customer service. If you can find out how you’re doing with customer service without asking your customers, that’s even better! For example, if you have contact centers, use mystery shops and service evaluations.

These methods give you data that is inherently more accurate and objective, without asking anything of your customers.

Principle #4: Take Analysis Seriously

Analysis is where meaning is uncovered, and where the the signal is separated from the noise. So, give analysis your undivided attention!

Segment your data in myriad ways: Be sure to code your unstructured data. You need to thoroughly tag and categorize your customers’ comments because the point is to uncover themes!

Find out what’s driving your outcomes: Correlation analysis is the only way to prioritize next steps and actions. Simply knowing your Net Promoter or Satisfaction Score is not enough—especially when it comes to customer service.

Make sure your analysis accounts for the subtleties of the customer experience: This is crucial because experiences are comprised of multiple touchpoints and personas. In addition, experiences are largely subconscious and always evolving.

Customer Feedback is a Research Discipline

Customer Feedback is a research discipline. Unfortunately, all too often getting feedback about your customer service is treated as a task that doesn’t require time or expertise. But if you ask tired questions in tired ways you won’t learn much. Let’s change that!

Toward the best customer listening and great customer service!

About the Author

Martha Brooke is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) and holds a Blackbelt in Six Sigma. To dramatically improve the Customer Experience, Martha founded Interaction Metrics, a research-driven Customer Listening agency in 2004. Interaction Metrics shows clients how to improve with methods such as satisfaction surveys and service evaluations.

You can find Martha at linkedin.com/in/marthabrooke and read her blog at Interaction Metrics Insights.

Customer Experience is based on customer feedback and engagement.

With the presence of review sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and comment sections on company websites themselves, CX leaders are now faced with a question many aren’t sure how to answer.

“Should I respond to positive and negative customer feedback? If so, is there a best way to do so?

The short answer… Yes, absolutely respond to feedback whenever possible.

Response suggestions

If your customers take the time to post a review online, I strongly suggest you respond to it. A short reply – “ We are so happy it was a great event for you! Thanks for your comment. We appreciate it.” or some variation demonstrates their feedback is reviewed and valued.

Potential and existing customers seeing responses online notice that someone in your company is taking time to view feedback online and considering it.

Always respond to the negative comments

You may be thinking – “This is all well and good if it’s a positive comment or review. But what if they are nasty or have a truly negative complaint? What do we do then?”

Same answer – Respond to it… with deliberateness.

Remember that folks are looking online for reviews. They’ll see the negative ones and decide for themselves if it holds any weight or is a concern for them. But they’ll always notice if there is a response and how it was handled.

Even when negative comments are sent by email, a response is necessary.

Let’s say you get a negative review. Craft your response to show professionalism, engagement, and intent to fix if possible.

“Thank you for letting us know things didn’t go as you expected. We always do our best to make our customers happy they chose us, but sometimes we miss the mark. Please accept our sincere apologies for your disappointment. Can you please send us your contact information so we may reach out to you personally to find a solution? We’d like to see if there is a way for us to regain your trust. We will also be sure to consider your feedback to prevent this situation from happening again to you or any of our customers.”

A response like this demonstrates you are actively reviewing and acknowledging all feedback, even the negative. It shows you’d like to redeem yourselves if possible.

People often shy away from apologizing as they believe it admits fault or accepts blame. I encourage everyone to apologize as quickly as possible… with deliberateness.

If your company made a mistake or fell short, then apologize and own it. If the customer has unknowingly messed things up, you can still apologize and give them grace. Here is an example to get you started…

“We are so sorry for the frustration you are having. We completely understand. This isn’t how we want any of our customers to feel and we’d really like the chance to help with a solution.”

Fault and blame are not taken by the company, yet not put in the face of the customer. It’s simply a company doing the right thing by trying to find a solution together.

These same principles hold true for feedback and comments sent directly to your company. Respond to all feedback whenever possible, especially the negative comments and complaints.

Most customers don’t take the time to send feedback as they feel it won’t do any good. Those that do send feedback often feel it wasn’t received or reviewed as they didn’t get a response.

Responding to feedback shows customers you value them, their perspective, and their feedback. Trust is built through your response. Trust builds customer loyalty.

About the Author

Kristina Evey is improving the way companies connect with their customers and increase their profits, she is an accomplished speaker and trainer on customer satisfaction and retention.

There are quite a few best practices out there to gain customer feedback to help improve your organization’s performance and growth. But are you asking the right questions?

Some of the usual questions asked to gain insight include:

• Is our product/service no longer useful to you?
• Did the price of our product/service cause you to leave?
• Have you decided to test out a competitor?
• What would you like to see changed?
• What would you say about your experience?

While all interesting, they are fairly useless. There’s a good reason for this – they are binary questions. Each can be answered with a Yes or a No, or a singular comment. In addition, there’s little to no context of the WHY. And the “why” is the most important thing to know.

Take, for example, the question of “is our product/service no longer useful to you”? Many organizations will take questions like this through a broad sweeping online survey, with a “yes/no” radio option and an “open-ended” text box to gather more detailed input. The challenge is that to get to the root of the “why” requires a conversation – a skilled interviewer and facilitator that can help the customer effectively articulate their reasons for their perceptions and actions.

It might be simple as the product or service is something they now do in-house, or that they don’t use the item anymore due to operational changes. Yet, a trained interviewer will have the ability to ask a series of questions that will lead to more detail, identifying not only potential issues and problems which led to the change, but also opportunities that might be available to create new offerings, change offerings or identify a whole new product or service line.

When we put the onus on the customer to think through their decision process on their own, without investing the time to have an intimate conversation about the “why” behind the decision, we leave an inordinate amount of opportunity on the table. This hands-on engagement with customers is critical – it allows your organization to understand the nuances and unique challenges your customers have, that your competitors are not exploring.

Once we start to understand that “customer feedback” can’t simply be an automated process – that it requires face time with customers, often in their own environments, to gain true insights into the “why” behind their behaviors and decisions, only then will we capture the input necessary to change our organizational competitiveness.

About the Author

Andrea Belk Olson has a 20-year, field-tested background that provides unique, applicable approaches to creating more customer-centric organizations. A 4-time ADDY® award-winner, she began her career at a tech start-up and led the strategic marketing efforts at two global industrial manufacturers. In addition to writing, consulting and coaching, Andrea speaks to leaders and industry organizations around the world on how to craft effective customer-facing operational strategies to discover new sources of revenues and savings.

Most “predictive rundown” articles that kick off at the beginning of the year focus on big technologies, major disruptions, or massive breakthroughs that will upend your market.

While these possibilities may manifest at some point, there’s something to be said for going back to the basics. They say, “what got you here, might not get you there”, that doesn’t mean as an organization you toss out the good with the bad. More importantly, you don’t lose sight of the practical essentials that make a business successful – customers.

Why are customers the key to growth in 2019? Because they are the key to growth every year. Not just simply focusing on “more customers” or “new markets”, but how you can shape your organization to serve your customers more effectively, adapt to their changing needs and perceptions, and most of all, engage with them. No matter the next big thing that comes along, truly understanding your customers will always be a differentiator you can take to the bank.

When we examine the concept of understanding customers in 2019, there are three trends to keep in the forefront of your strategic vision:

1) Businesses will further adapt to the modern customer. “Customers today have more choices than ever, and they have shown they will gravitate toward those who prioritize the delivery of fast, seamless and personalized service. This is true whether they are ordering lunch, getting their car repaired or making a financial transaction. In my industry of financial services, we’ve already seen large legacy companies start to fall behind smaller startups who offer better user experiences.” – Bernardo Martinez, U.S. managing director at Funding Circle

2) Technology will not replace the human touch. “Technology is always improving, and with the latest and greatest tempting every organization, we need to keep in mind that AI and predictive analytics will not replace the human when it comes to delivering the customer experience. While there are definitely some great opportunities ahead for AI … it will not be a true game-changer, at least in the next year. AI can really be thought of as ‘augmented intelligence,’ because it can augment the human, giving people better information, greater insight and the ability to perform their roles better.” – Claire Sporton, senior vice president of customer experience innovation at Confirmit

3) Genuine relationships trump technology. “Technology runs our lives more than ever, but it is relationships that drive business and commerce, so people will find more ways to connect in person to build trust and strengthen connections. Make sure you offer several ways to talk with [customers] and get to know them. Algorithms can only tell you so much about a customer, [but] transactions are driven by relationships. Use automation where you can, but do not ignore the power of the personal touch.” – Paige Arnof-Fenn, founder and CEO of Mavens & Moguls

As we look into 2019 and beyond, it’s important for organizations to not get distracted by the next trend or shiny new object – many of the critical fundamentals that got your organization to where it is today, are the ones that will help you continue to grow it into the future. As long as you’re focused on understanding your customer as you did on day one, the answers on how to stay competitive will naturally follow.

About the Author

Andrea Belk Olson has a 20-year, field-tested background that provides unique, applicable approaches to creating more customer-centric organizations. A 4-time ADDY® award-winner, she began her career at a tech start-up and led the strategic marketing efforts at two global industrial manufacturers. In addition to writing, consulting and coaching, Andrea speaks to leaders and industry organizations around the world on how to craft effective customer-facing operational strategies to discover new sources of revenues and savings.

Customer satisfaction is what differentiates you from your competition.

I catch myself saying this pretty often to my colleagues and to my readers. Customer satisfaction, has gained a lot of importance in the last few years. Customers have begun to expect a lot more from companies and brands than just a trouble-free purchase. With plenty of companies sprouting every other minute, customer loyalty is a hard win. Organizations have to constantly work to ensure that customer satisfaction trumps company profits. Every single time.

Not convinced yet? Let’s look at a few numbers and stats.

• By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key differentiator between brands.
• One happy customer can equal as many as 9 referrals for your business.
• Great customer experience can lift revenue by up to 15%.
• Maximizing customer experience can lower the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%.
• 74% of consumers have spent more due to good customer service.
• 86% of buyers would pay more for a better customer experience.
• 56% of global consumers say they have higher expectations for customer service now than they had just one year ago.

Source: www.garyefox.com

Source:https://marketoonist.com/

Everyone is a Customer Support Unicorn

Back in the days, organizations had separate teams for customer service that helped answer customer questions. But we still have support teams to run the show even today. What’s changed? Employees are encouraged to become customer engagement agents. Customer support agents are encouraged to sell or market products in a way that doesn’t sound promotional. Roles of people from different functions are diverging; everyone within an organization is becoming aware of the importance of customer experience to brand health. Companies are also adopting advanced customer support tactics such as implementing omnichannel support or identifying and solving customer issues even before they become pressing problems.

What Cannot be Measured, Cannot be Managed

Now that you know the importance of customer satisfaction, your next course of action is to put a plan together on how to incorporate it into your support strategy. And to do that, you need to identify and measure a few key customer support metrics. From our experience as a customer support software company, here are four key metrics that we think you should measure.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

That’s a no-brainer. If you are measuring customer success then the first place to start would be the CSAT score. It is necessary to measure this metric so that you can identify what’s lagging and how you can fix it. When you fix this in the product or service, it will result in happy customer. And when customers are happy, they share their positive experience with other people. This builds trust in your prospects because 92% of prospects trust recommendations from other customers. Another important benefit is lower churn. With every 5% increase in retention your profitability goes up by 25-95%.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

One other closely related metric that you need to include when measuring customer experience is the net promoter score or NPS. This is usually confused with the CSAT score. While CSAT is only about customer satisfaction ratings, the NPS is a combination of customer ratings and free-form customer feedback. You are essentially asking your customers whether or not they will take the time to share positive reviews about your business. This feedback comes in through surveys that you take after a customer interaction. Since this is a free-form feedback, customers have the space to detail their experience or expectations from your business. Using this information you can build a better product experience and customer interaction.

When creating a survey, you need to create a strong survey program that will effectively gather the required information or feedback from your customer. Sometimes, all it takes is one question.

Churn

Most of the decision-makers in an organization will argue that churn is the most important metric, particularly if you are a SaaS company. Though there are many ways to calculate churn, it is essentially the percentage of customers who turn away from doing business with you. Nearly 86% of companies are focused on acquiring new customers. But in truth, the cost of acquiring a new customer is greater than the cost of retaining an existing customer. Churn rate helps you identify how much effort you need to put into retention and gives you insights on how you can improve your customers’ experiences.

How to Consistently Maintain 98% CSAT

Make your customers the focus of your interactions. Provide quick resolution. Follow up and close the loop on conversations with customers. Use a good helpdesk software. These are things that you already know and might have implemented them in your support processes. Here are four out of the box ideas that you can use to up your customer satisfaction score and consistently stay at it.

Avoid excessive use of canned responses

Though this might be easy to improve first response time for your agents, it does not work in favor of customer satisfaction. Your customers know when they receive a canned response no matter how personalized you make them. Use them sensibly.

Quick responses vs quick quality responses

Common wisdom has it that it’s necessary to respond to customer queries as quickly as you can. But that doesn’t mean you have to shoot for the moon. If the stress is on quicker responses, your agents might succumb to the pressure of responding quickly but the quality of their support will take a hit. Always remember that it’s quality before speed.

Automate processes with care

Automation takes a whole lot of load off your agents. Manual repeat processes like ticket allocation, auto response, can work wonders for teams that focus on time management. But automation has its pitfalls as well. You need to take the time to scrutinize every process that you automate so that customer tickets do not end up with the wrong support agent or team.

Be proactive

If you were a customer, what would your next question about a specific issue be? This is what is commonly known as forward resolving where you anticipate what the customers’ next question will be. And then you proactively offer it as a solution even before it is asked. This adds an element of pleasant surprise to the customer’s interaction and has a positive impact on their experience.

In Closing

The ideas that I have mentioned are not limited. You can get as creative as you can to come up with ideas that will help you consistently wow your customers and in turn, help you maintain a good customer satisfaction score. If you have done something out of the box and has worked well for you, share them as comments here.

Happy supporting!

About the Author

Monica Maria is the Content Marketing Manager at Freshworks. She has a profound knowledge on the ticketing system and its functioning which makes her voice about it often. When she is not charting out content strategies, you can find her reading Sci-fi, doodling, or taking photographs. You can
connect with her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Customer analytics and big data are all the trend, but you shouldn’t lose sight of the fact customer surveys are a tried and tested method to understand how your business is doing and what your customers want from you.

Conducting a customer survey isn’t difficult and by using a little creativity together with a great survey maker tool you’ll soon be unearthing some valuable customer insights.

Here are my top 10 tips for creating a successful customer survey.

1. Start with a tempting invite

Keep your survey invitation short and to the point. Explain the purpose of the survey and why your customer has been selected. Give an estimate of how long it will take to complete and if you really want to increase your responses, include a small reward. Don’t forget to include a link to the survey and give your customer the option of opting out if they prefer.

2. Make it timely

Forget once a year surveys, you need to plug into how your customers are feeling during or immediately after their interaction with you. For the best customer feedback try aligning your surveys with important milestones along the customer journey.

3. Use a reliable survey tool

Choose a data collection tool that makes asking questions easy and works on all devices. Typeform.com provides attractive forms that can be matched to your company style, which can boost completion rates and keep respondents engaged.

4. Keep it short

To catch your customers attention and to keep them focused make your survey as short as possible. If your survey is too long, you’ll be in danger of boring your customers and getting too many ‘don’t know’ responses. You should try and limit your survey to 10 questions or less.

5. Ask specific questions

Avoid asking questions about ideas or broad concepts. Stick to the facts by asking questions such as: “were you served within five minutes of ordering your coffee?”

6. Make your survey accessible

For your customer data to make sense, you need as many participants as possible. Publicise your survey in as many places as possible such as on your website, social media accounts, emails, off-line marketing materials and even by word-of-mouth.

7. Don’t ask loaded questions

Believe it or not, we sometimes (consciously or unconsciously) lead our customers to the answers we want to hear. Avoid asking questions such as: “were you satisfied with the service you received today?” and replace with: “On a scale of 1 to 5 how satisfied were you with the service you received today?” The scale you use is up to you, just remember to stick with the same scale throughout the survey.

8. Avoid unfamiliar language

Avoid technical terms and keep the words you use simple and jargon free. Make sure your questions are unambiguous and easy to understand and use an informal style of writing if possible.

9. Survey non-customers

Don’t just invite your current customers to participate in your surveys. For example, you can gather useful information by asking for feedback when shoppers abandon your online cart or leave your store without buying anything.

10. Comply with legislation

Information privacy laws and data protection laws vary from country to country. Always make yourself aware of any local legislation with which you need to comply when conducting your survey.

Creating a customer survey will reveal how your customers view you and the service you provide. Positive or negative, this feedback will open your eyes to the wants and needs of your customers, enabling you to adjust, improve and innovate!