Technology does not power Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs. Rather, these programs are powered by people who use technology to resolve business issues. This distinction is significant because even the best technologies cannot impact the bottom-line without real people developing and executing smart VoC strategies.
Here are three ways to better power and praise the people and processes behind successful VoC programs:
- Create a more effective (and accountable) workforce through customer centricity
Use customer feedback to identify how to best manage and motivate your workforce. A key opportunity is ensuring that you link customer feedback to the individual or team who was part of delivering service to that customer, across all touch points, whether through a contact center, retail environment or complaint process.
This information can help you identify training requirements and identify needs effectively. It also means you can share positive feedback with the whole team involved with delivering service to clients, which will help to foster a positive environment and a true understanding of how every member of the team impacts customer experience.
Action Step: In a contact center environment, for example, link your VoC data back to metrics and systems so you can track which agent dealt with each customer and correlate satisfaction figures by team or individual. As a next step, enable colleagues to comment on the customer experience.
- Link your customer and employee feedback
Front-line employees tend to have a clear understanding of the issues that face customers, and their underlying causes. Use employee feedback to validate what your customers are telling you, and use their insight to establish the quickest and most effective fixes.
Action Step: Use a Voice of the Employee program to get your employees’ opinions about the customer comments they hear most often. In addition, provide employees with access to tailored VoC reports and build a mechanism for them to validate and comment on solutions.
- Share the “why” to CRM’s “what”
Pure CRM data will only provide customer care agents with data about a customer’s past purchases and demographic information. This is insufficient if that customer recently provided feedback as part of your VoC program or contacted you proactively to make a complaint. Agents need access to up-to-date, comprehensive and accurate information in order to effectively engage with customers and make the right decisions. The more advanced VoC platforms are able to integrate with CRM databases, making this a quick win available through integration.
Action Step: VoC data sits naturally alongside CRM data, but it’s still a rare organization that actually links the two. If your business uses a satisfaction or “recommend” score to measure customer experience by asking customers how likely they are to recommend the company to a friend, make this information available to teams to complement standard CRM data. VoC provides the “why” to CRM’s “what” and failing to create two-way integration is a wasted opportunity.
For more information about Confirmit and how to implement leading-edge VoC and Employee Feedback strategies and solutions, please visit: http://www.confirmit.com/who-we-are/market-leadership/confirmit-voices.aspx.
