Top Priority: Customer Insights
Author: Robin Gareiss, CEO and Principal Analyst
Not available for licensing.
Feedback from customers is golden. It shows companies where they are doing well—and where they aren’t. Those who interact with customers the most typically are in the contact center or on the frontlines. Gathering feedback about interactions with these employees—and acting on it—is one of the quickest ways midsize businesses can leapfrog their larger competitors and grow their businesses.
Midsize enterprises, however, do have challenges to overcome, including staffing, budget, and technology focus. Voice of the Customer programs, which gather this feedback, are vital to improving business metrics. Nearly 75% of midsize businesses said in December 2021 that they planned to have a program in place by the end of 2022—but their sophistication varies.
Those developing a program must understand the various ways they can gather customer input, and then prioritize where they will focus. Feedback can be interactive, responsive or implicit—and each has its value. Once they decide the type of feedback to analyze, they must manage all the data, including both quantitative and qualitative information—often using artificial intelligence help with the massive amount of work involved with managing that qualitative, or open-ended, feedback.
Organizations also must gather contextual feedback regarding the interaction channels delivering the best and worst results. By correlating that feedback with employee performance (85% of midsize businesses are doing this already), they can continuously improve agent skills and ultimately customer ratings.
In the end, the key goal of VoC programs is to improve business metrics. Among the 35% of midsize enterprises that had implemented VoC programs as of late 2021, they saw compelling improvements in revenue, cost, customer ratings, employee satisfaction, and agent efficiency. In fact, midsize businesses saw a 36.5% increase in revenue, compared to only 26.6% for all companies, when they implemented VoC programs.
Table of Content
- Executive Summary
- Introduction
- Challenges for Midsize Enterprises
- Voice of the Customer Program Development
- VoC Interactive Feedback
- VoC Responsive Feedback
- VoC Implicit
- Feedback Management
- Contextual Feedback
- Making the Feedback Matter
- Integrating Feedback
- Measuring Success
- Conclusion
Feedback from customers is golden. It shows companies where they are doing well—and where they aren’t. Those who interact with customers the most typically are in the contact center or on the frontlines. Gathering feedback about interactions with these employees—and acting on it—is one of the quickest ways midsize businesses can leapfrog their larger competitors and grow their businesses.
Midsize enterprises, however, do have challenges to overcome, including staffing, budget, and technology focus. Voice of the Customer programs, which gather this feedback, are vital to improving business metrics. Nearly 75% of midsize businesses said in December 2021 that they planned to have a program in place by the end of 2022—but their sophistication varies.
Those developing a program must understand the various ways they can gather customer input, and then prioritize where they will focus. Feedback can be interactive, responsive or implicit—and each has its value. Once they decide the type of feedback to analyze, they must manage all the data, including both quantitative and qualitative information—often using artificial intelligence help with the massive amount of work involved with managing that qualitative, or open-ended, feedback.
Organizations also must gather contextual feedback regarding the interaction channels delivering the best and worst results. By correlating that feedback with employee performance (85% of midsize businesses are doing this already), they can continuously improve agent skills and ultimately customer ratings.
In the end, the key goal of VoC programs is to improve business metrics. Among the 35% of midsize enterprises that had implemented VoC programs as of late 2021, they saw compelling improvements in revenue, cost, customer ratings, employee satisfaction, and agent efficiency. In fact, midsize businesses saw a 36.5% increase in revenue, compared to only 26.6% for all companies, when they implemented VoC programs.
