A Call To Action For Customer Insights: Creating A Culture Of Continuous Capture, Transformation And Application

Innovation A Call To Action For Customer Insights: Creating A Culture Of Continuous Capture, Transformation And Application Tom Goodmanson Forbes Councils Member Forbes Technology Council COUNCIL POST Expertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based) Jul 8, 2022, 06:30am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin President and CEO at Calabrio .

getty Individuals and brands alike were impacted at the outset of the pandemic, as customers tried to get a hold of ticketing platforms and contact center agents, on the other side of those calls, attempted to navigate impossible-to-prepare-for situations. The plethora of communication channels introduced two years ago to make those interactions more manageable is here to stay. The norm now is to have an abundance of options available to connect with customers more easily—from AI-enabled chatbots and social media to email and phone calls—but that also creates more opportunities for the customer journey to go haywire.

The customer experience must be considered more holistically, and its evolution must be examined. Leaders need to strategize with the “end” of the journey in mind and better understand the importance of the last touchpoint with the customer. Then, they need to build systems and solutions that can successfully connect the dots and bring everything together to create a culture of continuous capture, transformation and application of insights.

The Current Location Of The Customer Journey Customers regularly tell brands what they want and need, but these brands often unintentionally ignore it because they are set up with too many disparate data silos that do not properly connect to and from the contact center. Research shows that 39% of highly data-driven organizations have more than 50 data silos. MORE FOR YOU Google Issues Warning For 2 Billion Chrome Users Forget The MacBook Pro, Apple Has Bigger Plans Google Discounts Pixel 6, Nest & Pixel Buds In Limited-Time Sale Event This has turned the customer experience into one of absolute frustration.

Though less extreme situations are occurring today, there are still plenty of stuck signals occurring within the customer journey. Without the right solution to notify the appropriate departments, brands operate under a false or incomplete picture of the customer’s experience. This results in an even more frustrating experience when the customer returns and must repeat their last interaction all over again.

Stuck signals impact the agent experience as well. When customers show up already frustrated, the agent is left to dig out of an uncomfortable hole, attempting to reconcile the situation. Plus, the Great Resignation is still happening—nearly 4.

4 million Americans quit their jobs in February with the hope of greener pastures. This widespread labor crisis is telling us we need to do better. In the customer service world, we need to humanize contact center agent experiences because 1.

it is the right thing to do, and 2. the more we take care of the agent, the better the customer experience. The Target Destination Of The Customer Experience While “CTA” traditionally means “call to action,” we need to evolve and create another definition.

A more relevant CTA approach is one that focuses on capturing, transforming and applying insights from the customer experience to help “unstick” customer signals. This progressive approach better addresses the problems that are limiting the power of data and creates a better customer and agent experience. • “Capture” data across the customer journey.

Do organizations need every data entry point they currently have? How many are capturing repetitive information? There should not be more entry points than there are departments within a company. Moreover, departments should all have a singular way of communicating their insights with the other departments to paint a full picture. Otherwise, customer signals will be inconsistent, and the data becomes next to impossible to interpret and understand.

Leaders need to assess their channels and coordinate across departments to understand where there is overlap; then, they must reduce the complexity and chaos. • “Transform” data points into actionable insights. Streamlining how data is captured and shared helps simplify the process of turning that data into actionable information.

The transformation stage is when raw and complex data from different systems is aggregated and integrated to create true business insights that are easy to analyze, digest and share. Say a shipping and packaging company has a billing problem, and instead of taking the time to recognize this problem was only impacting 200 customers, they execute a nationwide email marketing campaign that goes to 50,000 customers detailing the issue. They just advertised an issue that was only a problem for a small subset of customers to a much larger group, many of whom might now panic and call in.

Organizations should consider technology options that can help more easily understand the root cause of issues, so they can strategize more effective solutions and prevent these situations. • “Apply” insights to enhance the customer experience. It is then time to act on these insights, improve operations and enhance experiences.

HR departments, for example, can set up flags when an agent has received favorable feedback, which can help make the case for their next promotion. Marketing teams also can glean insights to better inform their campaign strategies. For example, some companies might find through incoming calls, emails or chats, that billboards, social media and radio are more commonly mentioned and thus the more effective ways for them to engage customers than transit ads.

Customers are blatantly telling organizations what they want and need. Instead of the business missing it, they can take action to improve by, e. g.

, adjusting marketing spend to more impactful mediums. To truly embody the CTA mantra, leaders need to start by better understanding their own business landscape and then build or buy smarter solutions to eliminate silos and integrate data more seamlessly. This results in actionable insights that can positively impact everyone today and in the years to come.

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