In 2016, Sports Authority—once considered the largest sporting goods chain in the country—filed for bankruptcy after nearly three decades in the retail business. Ultimately, the failure to differentiate itself and understand the wants and needs of today’s consumers led to the retailer’s demise.
While it’s easy to blame online giants like Amazon for the decline of traditional retail, other stores, including Macy’s, Lululemon and Nike have remained afloat. Why? They’ve adapted with the market, and are actively working on the customer experience—both online and in stores. Macy’s recently revamped its rewards program, and Nordstrom continues to build its social media presence, allowing shoppers to purchase products directly from its Instagram page.
Sports Authority’s story paints a clear picture: listening to your customers and understanding the playing field are key, not just to remain relevant in a competitive buyer’s market, but to stay ahead of consumer expectations. Winning brands utilize data and customer insights to pave the way of the customer journey.
But here’s the problem. Countless companies collect customer interaction data but don’t understand how to use it to drive strategic change. A new survey found that decision-makers only rely on one data source at a time—mainly revenue figures and social media metrics. That means business leaders don’t know what’s really going on with customers, and subsequently fail to meet goals for customer satisfaction and retention.
The C-suite needs data from all customer communication channels to drive meaningful change. Contact center analytics has the power to deliver the true voice of the customer from all channels—social media, text, chat, email, voice and more. But where do you start?
Here are five strategies that ensure the voice of the customer is heard by your C-suite and beyond:
Always operate with the business’s goals in mind
To weave itself into the bigger picture of the organization, the contact center must understand the main business objectives and align its priorities. Know what information executives need from customers, and then utilize data and analytics tools to provide those insights. The contact center should continually shift its initiatives to keep up with the company.
Provide a complete view of the customer
Contact center analytics shows what customers say and what they mean by pulling insights from each interaction. It’s the contact center’s job to look across all channels to identify trends, problems and opportunities, then send that information up to management and the C-suite.
Make data digestible
The best way to make contact center analytics absorbable for the rest of the organization is to present it in a way that anyone can access and understand. Visually appealing dashboards that break down data silos and present a single view of the customer are more likely to be used. The key to developing digestible reports is to drill down into the most relevant insights for an executive’s role and business responsibilities, then serve it up on a platter.
Garner support from other teams
Conversations between agents and customers are relevant to every part of the business. Individuals from all departments can add understanding and depth to contact center data and analytics. Pull together the whole picture and decisions get made more easily and quickly.
Lead change by taking action
While providing data that shows a holistic view of the customer is helpful and necessary, it’s not enough to simply share results. The contact center should drive improvements to its own processes and outputs leveraging customer interaction data. It should lead by example and take the first step in improving the customer experience.
Change is necessary, but it means nothing if it doesn’t add value for customers. The contact center is a goldmine of customer insights necessary for the C-suite to keep up with the experience customers want and demand. For business leaders depending on unreliable or biased data points, or struggling to connect the dots between sources of customer input, it’s time contact center analytics took a seat at your table.
