Some marketers complain about having too much customer experience data, but don’t know what to do with it to make it actionable.
On June 14, 2016, at 1 p.m. EDT, Verint will present a webinar titled, “5 Keys to Successfully Transform CX Data into Actionable Insights,” which will be hosted by Loyalty360 – The Association for Customer Loyalty.
The featured speakers for the webinar will be: Brian Koma, Vice President and CX Practice Leader, Verint; and Sean Mahoney, Director of CX Solutions Consulting, Verint.
Loyalty360 caught up with Mahoney to learn more about this compelling topic that is germane for all loyalty marketers.
Many marketers complain of having too much data, but without a plan to make it actionable. What is your advice for those marketers?
Mahoney: Begin at the beginning: Identify and focus on your organizational objectives. By leveraging your governance structure, you can create rules to route key insights to the right organizational sponsor. Mapping their actions and outcomes back to the key performance indicator will allow you to see where you are on target, and where you are missing the mark. And, remember, the old maxim remains true today: The only way to eat the whole elephant is one bite at a time. Limit your initial “data-into-action” program to one key interaction or channel.
What are the keys to successfully leveraging CX data?
Mahoney: Stay in alignment with your organizational objectives. And most importantly, stay in alignment with your customer’s journey. That’s the journey your customer actually takes, and not the one you want them or think they do. Ask them how they attempted to complete a process (sign up, request support, make a purchase, etc.), and then tap those interaction channels as listening posts. Next, take that feedback, conduct segmentation analysis, and put that information into the hands of your key stakeholders in the context of an action planning exercise. Wash, rinse, repeat.
What is entailed in the analysis phase of a customer engagement project?
Mahoney: A good friend and colleague once said, “Let the data speak to you.” Analysis should be done with an eye on what story your audience is presenting, and the best way to get to that insight is by examining the unstructured data coming from each interaction and feedback loop. Looking at the recorded conversations captured in the customer service center and the open-ended survey comments will yield the key themes your customers are bringing to you.
From here, drill down and examine the structured data associated with each emerging theme, and look for the trends. As sentiment and emotion shift within an area of the unstructured data, what are the correlated structured data points (be they loyalty, satisfaction, repurchase intent, effort, etc.)? This yields the key moments of truth, and these insights need to be placed into the hands of the executive sponsors and frontline stakeholders to act on.
How do you know if your CX insights are being leveraged properly?
Mahoney: You’ll know it when:
§ The customer journey map is in the boardroom and in every field office.
§ Your company has a designated Center of Excellence focused on customer experience, led by a corporate executive
§ Quarterly and Semi-annual Business Review Meetings with customer include, if they don’t begin with, a review of the feedback captured and action plans in place.
§ Your CEO includes CX metrics in company all-hands meetings and in statements to the marketplace.
§ Compensation isn’t tied to getting a “perfect score”, but to continued improvement in the customer’s experiences.
How do you track and identify key behavioral changes in customers?
Mahoney: Longitudinal customer relationship survey projects are key. Leverage the data you already have in hand from your existing business systems (especially CRM, customer order management and support systems) to feed customer history, demographic and identity information into you project. This allows you to perform both the necessary segmentations and aggregations, and trend data over the course of time. Bringing in customer demographic, firmographic and interaction histories is essential to ensuring you are able to identify both behavioral and attitudinal shifts, and then act appropriately.