Customer Experience

Think of your favorite clothing brand. Why is that brand your favorite? It is probably because you enjoy their clothes, but also because every time you buy something it is an easy, enjoyable process. The way you feel about that brand is because of the customer experience you have every time you make a purchase. The customer experience you have with a brand will cause you to be a lifelong customer, or never shop there again. 

What is Customer Experience (CX)?

Customer Experience (CX) refers to the overall impression and perception a customer has about a company or brand based on their interactions throughout the entire customer journey. This includes all touchpoints and interactions a customer has with a business, from initial awareness and consideration to purchase, use, and after-sales service.

Customer experience programs refer to an organization’s ongoing efforts to listen to and collect customer feedback, measure customer perceptions of their experiences, and ultimately improve those experiences to encourage positive brand perception and business growth. Customer experience can also be referred to as customer experience management (CXM or CEM).

Why is Customer Experience Important?

Did you know that 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for a product or service if they have a great customer experience? Also, companies who prioritize the customer experience outperform their competitors who do not. 

The customer experience represents the relationship that consumers have with your organization. Every interaction a customer has with you is important, and curating a great customer experience shows that you value your customer’s time and feedback, and will use it to further improve your organization. 

Focusing on the customer experience will significantly improve your business performance. From increased loyalty and customer lifetime value to decreased churn, the customer experience is key to achieving your goals. Here are some statistics that prove the value of customer experience: 

• Organizations focused on customer experience realize revenue 1.7x faster than those who do not
• Customer experience leaders outperform the broader stock market, generating returns that are 108 points higher than the S&P 500 Index
• Customers with positive experiences are likely to spend 140% more than ones with negative experiences

Where to Begin with Customer Experience?

There are a lot of different reasons why you may be looking to improve your customer experience. It might be because organizations that focus on the customer experience are 60% more profitable than those that don’t, or it might be because you are interested in improving customer retention, satisfaction, or lifetime value. Regardless of your goals, there are steps you can take to build a solid foundation for your future customer experience initiatives. 

1. Map the Customer Journey 

In order to improve the customer experience, you need to make sure you understand the current customer experience that exists in your organization. This can be done by creating a customer journey map. Customer journey mapping is a powerful tool to visualize every touchpoint a customer has with your brand. Customer journey mapping examples can be useful to see how other organizations have visualized their customer experience. This exercise will highlight potential pain points and opportunities to enhance the customer experience.

2. Set Clear CX Goals

Before taking any steps to set up your customer experience program, you will need to meet with the stakeholders within your organization and decide on what you want to achieve. When choosing these goals, try to avoid broad goals such as “improve sales.” Instead, try to make specific, targeted goals such as “improve overall customer satisfaction by 25% over the next year.” Specific goals will help you create a focused strategy, and will also be easier to track success. 

3. Design Your CX Program

Now that you have your goals set, you will need to design your CX program. It is important to do this before reaching out to customers via surveys or asking reviews. That way, when customer feedback does start coming in, you are prepared for it. 

These steps will help you create an effective and long-lasting customer experience program. If you want to learn more about the best way to kickstart your CX efforts, check out our beginner’s guide to launching a customer experience program! 

How to Measure Customer Experience

There are many different customer experience KPIs on which you can measure the success of your customer experience initiatives. The metrics you choose will depend on what your customer experience goals are. For example. customer satisfaction helps you measure overall satisfaction, while customer effort score measures the ease of which customers interact with your business. 

You should choose the metric that most closely aligns to your CX goals. Once you have chosen the metric that makes the most sense, you will need to get a baseline of where your customer experience metrics stand that you can use to measure for improvement. Here is a brief overview of some of the most common customer experience metrics:

1. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) 

The customer satisfaction score assesses the overall satisfaction customers feel with your product, service, or overall experience. This score is typically assessed through a customer satisfaction survey that asks “How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the service you received?” where respondents answer on a scale from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10. 

This metric is best used for gathering immediate feedback on customer satisfaction with specific aspects of the business. A long-term use case would be to identify areas that need improvement and track changes in satisfaction over time.

2. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score measures customer loyalty and the likelihood of them recommending your brand to others. It involves asking customers a single question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?” Based on their response, customers are categorized as Promoters (9-10), Passives (7-8), or Detractors (0-6). NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.

3. Customer Effort Score (CES)

The Customer Effort Score evaluates how easy it is for customers to interact with your business, whether it’s finding information, getting support, or completing a purchase. Customers are asked to rate the ease of their experience on a scale. A common question is: “How easy was it to resolve your issue with our company?” A lower effort score indicates a smoother, more positive customer experience. 

These metrics are important to showing the ROI of your customer experience efforts. They can also be used alongside business growth metrics such as retention rate, repeat purchases, growth in sales, and more to correlate the customer experience improvements with business improvements. 

Building a Customer Experience Strategy

A customer experience strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines how a company intends to improve and manage customers’ interactions and perceptions of its brand. Often headed by a customer experience manager, these plans encompass all touchpoints across the customer journey and aim to deliver a consistent, positive, and memorable experience. 

Whether you have an established CX program or are just getting started, a customer experience strategy ensures you are making focused decisions on how to improve the things that matter most to your customers and your business. 

If you are just getting started, check out our small CX team checklist to ensure you have everything you need to make the biggest impact to on your customer experience!

Do You Need a Customer Experience Manager?

If your company is new to customer experience, starting with a dedicated customer experience manager is a smart move. This role is crucial for ensuring that all interactions and touchpoints between your company and its customers are positive, consistent, and aligned with your overall CX strategy.

A CX manager serves as the central figure in your customer experience efforts, connecting the dots across different departments—such as frontline employees, sales, marketing, and the executive team. This ensures that the customer experience is cohesive and integrated throughout the organization. Furthermore,  a CX manager can lay the groundwork for a strong customer experience strategy and scale the program as your organization grows.

Should You Invest in Customer Experience Management Software?

Customer experience management software is a set of tools that help you manage, analyze, and improve customer interactions across touchpoints throughout the customer journey. The best customer experience management software will be one that fits your business needs, and can be tailored to your specific goals. 

Customer experience software can be especially useful for CX managers or small CX teams who do not have the resources available to manually gather and analyze data. By automating the collection and analysis of customer data, customer experience software can quickly identify areas needing improvement and help prioritize them based on potential impact. This means you can focus your efforts on the changes that will make the most difference to your customers. 

Customer Experience Examples

A great customer experience can take many forms. But, something that all memorable customer experiences have in common is the ability to put the customer first, no matter what. Here are a few examples of companies that have gone above and beyond to create a customer experience that keeps customers coming back. 

Foot Locker

Foot Locker is one of the most popular sportswear companies in the world. As a result, they, deal with a large volume of customer feedback. Going through this customer feedback manually was time-consuming, and caused important feedback to be missed. As a solution, Foot Locker chose text analysis software that allows them to summarize, analyze, and act on the most important comments from customers. In doing so, they increase customer satisfaction and are able to pinpoint any operational changes that need to be made as a solution for future customers. 

Rural King

Rural King is a farm supply store with locations all over the United States. Rural King’s main form of customer feedback is through online reviews. But, with no way to review every review that was coming in, they were struggling to connect with their customers. To fix this problem, they implemented a review management solution that allowed them to tag keywords, analyze sentiment, and respond to reviews. Furthermore, their solution allows them to create and share dashboards with multiple stakeholders across the organization. 

Both of these organizations have created great customer experiences by putting their customers first and making sure they have the necessary tools to listen to and implement feedback in the most efficient way possible. 

How to Improve the Customer Experience

Some businesses may think that it takes a lot of effort to improve their customer experience, but the truth is that improving your customer experience can be as simple as updating your business hours, or giving customers a discount on their next purchase for leaving a review. No matter where you are in building your customer experience journey, here are some ways you can improve your customer experience. 

Determine what Customers Value Most and Deliver

As you seek to improve your customer experience, gather information on what your current customers value most. You can leverage customer feedback surveys and analyze customer reviews, both good and bad, to determine what your customers are looking for from your company. 

Do your customers want your services to be more convenient? Do they want to know more about the service before they buy or subscribe? Do they have concerns about how their information is used and protected?  Do they want to spend less time on the phone with customer service representatives?

As you discover what it is that your customers are looking for, take steps to deliver it to them.

Let Customers Know Their Opinions Matter

Tell your customers that you’re listening and making changes to improve their experience. Advertise the changes you are making on your website or through social media. You may also want to thank customers for providing feedback and be quick to address any concerns that they express by reaching out to them personally.

Measure Improvements

As you proceed with your CX improvement strategy, measure the response from your customers with relevant metrics. As you keep track of things like conversions, customer complaints, purchases, and website traffic, you’ll be able to figure out which of your efforts are paying off and which are not.

Consider the Digital Experience 

As you work on your customer experience, don’t forget about the digital experience. Making improvements to aspects of the customer experience like your website navigation or automated phone menu options can vastly improve how easily and readily your customers can avail themselves of your services. Convenience and accessibility are large parts of a good customer experience, so be sure not to neglect how technology can help in your overall CX strategy.

Aim for Continuous Improvement 

Even as your improvements take effect, build upon your successes by continuing to analyze and improve your customer experience. Don’t rest on your laurels — in today’s constantly changing world of digital commerce, continuous improvement is needed. 

This is especially true if your customer’s needs start to outpace your current customer experience model — for instance, you might need greater technology capacity to serve larger numbers of customers, or you might break into a niche market that has different needs.

Improve Your Customer Experience with InMoment

InMomet’s best-in-class XI Platform gives your business all the tools you need to create a great customer experience. You can track the metrics that matter to your business, create cases, respond to customer reviews, and more! Everything within the XI Platform ca be customized for you. Schedule a demo today to see how InMoment can help you improve your customer experience. 

Customer experience programs can be complex. Often, a customer experience program includes multiple different initiatives running simultaneously throughout the organization. With so much going on in different places, it is beneficial to have one place to be able to see how your CX program is performing. This is where customer experience dashboards come in. 

What is a Customer Experience Dashboard?

A customer experience dashboard visually represents everything you are tracking in your customer experience program. This can include the number of survey responses, metrics over time, most recent online reviews, and more. 

Why are Customer Experience Dashboards Important?

Customer experience dashboards are important because they provide up-to-date information on customer interactions. By consolidating various customer-related metrics into one platform, dashboards facilitate informed decision-making. 

Furthermore, customer experience dashboards will help you track the success of your customer experience efforts and help you tie customer experience to business success. Proving the ROI of customer experience is one of the most important things CX practitioners can do, and it is made easier through customer experience dashboards. 

What are Customer Experience Dashboards Used For?

Customer experience dashboards are used for a variety of purposes. All of these are aimed at understanding the customer experience and ensuring that the best decisions are being made for the business. Some of the use cases for customer experience dashboards include: 

• Monitoring Key Metrics: Customer experience dashboards track important customer experience metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), churn rate, and more. These metrics help identify customer engagement and any areas of improvement. 

• Analyzing Customer Feedback: Customer experience dashboards can also aggregate and analyze customer feedback from various sources like surveys, reviews, social media, and support interactions. This helps businesses understand customer opinions and customer sentiment, identify common issues, and gauge overall satisfaction.

• Supporting Customer Retention: Dashboards help identify at-risk customers by monitoring engagement and satisfaction levels. For example, alerts can be set up when a customer leaves a 1-star rating so that swift action can be taken to keep the customer from churning. 

Features to Look for in Customer Experience Dashboards

Customer experience dashboards are useful to CX professionals because of their versatility. When looking for a customer experience solution to help build your dashboard, there are many features to consider. While it may be a personal decision, look for these features:

Customizability

You want your customer experience dashboard to be customized to your business and your customer experience program. Look for a solution that allows you to pick and choose what you are tracking, so you only see what matters most to your business. 

Alerting

Alerting features in customer experience dashboards notify businesses of significant changes or anomalies in customer metrics in real time. These alerts can be configured to trigger when certain thresholds are crossed, such as a sudden drop in Net Promoter Score (NPS) or an increase in customer churn rate. This is important because it will help you solve emerging issues before they escalate into serious problems. 

Reporting

Effective reporting is critical for customer experience dashboards. These features provide detailed summaries and visualizations of customer experience data over specified periods. Reports can be customized to focus on particular metrics, timeframes, or customer segments, and are often shared with stakeholders across the organization. 

Effective reporting is essential for tracking performance, identifying trends, and making informed decisions. Regular reports help stakeholders understand the current state of customer experience, evaluate the impact of initiatives, and plan future strategies.

Scalability 

Scalability refers to the ability of a customer experience dashboard to handle increasing volumes of data and users without compromising performance. Scalable dashboards can grow with the business, accommodating more metrics, more customers, and more detailed analysis over time.

Scalability is important because it ensures that the dashboard remains effective and efficient as the business expands. A scalable dashboard can adapt to changing needs, support larger datasets, and serve more users, all of which are crucial for sustained growth and continuous improvement in customer experience management.

Integration Capabilities 

Your customer experience software is only as good as its ability to intertwine with your business. When looking for a customer experience dashboard solution, look for one that supports integrations with the other software systems your business is using. This is important to create a comprehensive view of the customer experience. 

How to Create a Customer Experience Dashboard 

Upon looking at a customer experience dashboard, the thought of creating one may seem complicated. However, these dashboards are meant to make your customer experience management efforts easier, and creating a dashboard is just as simple as pulling everything together in one place. 

1. Define Your Customer Experience Goals

The most important step to creating a customer experience dashboard is to first decide on what you want to appear on that dashboard. To do that, you’ll need to identify the most important metrics to the success of your customer experience program. 

2. Identify the Appropriate Data Sources

To make sure the most accurate and up-to-date information appears on your dashboard, it is important to make sure your dashboard is pulling data from the best sources within your organization. 

Look for a dashboard that supports the best CX integrations so that you can easily pull data from the sources that your organization already uses, as opposed to having to set up entirely new systems for your dashboard. 

3. Select a Platform for Your CX Dashboard

Choosing the right platform for your customer experience dashboard is a critical step. The platform should offer robust features, such as customizable templates, real-time data updates, and integration capabilities with other systems like CRM and ERP. 

Evaluate options based on your specific needs, budget, and the technical expertise of your team. A well-chosen platform ensures that your dashboard is accessible, efficient, and able to grow with your business.

4. Implement Data 

Once you have selected a platform for your customer experience dashboard, the next step is to implement data. You will need to complete the integration process of your existing systems in your customer experience dashboard, at which point you should start to see data populate your dashboard. 

5. Gather Insights

With your data implemented, the final step is to gather insights from your customer experience dashboard. Analyze the data you have collected to ensure that your dashboard is showing you what you want to see about your customers. If the data is correct, start to look at areas for improvement that can boost the customer experience. 

Customer Experience Dashboard Best Practices

Following customer experience dashboard best practices will maximize the effectiveness and usage of your dashboards. Following best practices ensures that your customer experience dashboards will become a cornerstone of your CX program. 

Train Employees

All relevant employees must be thoroughly trained on how to use the dashboard. To do this, make sure all employees are trained on how to use the dashboard at the time it is launched and provide regular refresher sessions so that those employees can maintain or grow their knowledge. 

Furthermore, an employee feedback channel should be created for employees to provide feedback on the dashboard. This can identify areas of improvement in the dashboard or the training and can be useful to maintain the success of your dashboards. 

Set Up Reporting

Before creating your dashboard, you should have already outlined your goals for what you are hoping to achieve. After defining your goals and creating your dashboard, you will need to implement reports to track your progress. 

Different Levels of Admin and Account Access

You will want to select a platform that allows you to create multiple reports that are tailored to different stakeholders within the organization. For example, executives might need high-level summaries, while frontline employees might need detailed reports on specific interactions.

Another use case would be if your organization has multiple locations, each separate location will have its own dashboard while the executive team has a separate dashboard that gives a view into the organization. You may also want to consider platforms that automatically generate reports, which will save time and ensure timely access to important information. 

Monitor Information and Usage

By monitoring employee feedback and analyzing the reports created from the dashboard, you will be able to understand how well your customer experience dashboard is working for you. You may need to schedule more training sessions, update data sources, or change the metrics you are tracking. But, it is important to remember that a customer experience dashboard is not a one-time thing. To get the most out of it, you will need to consistently monitor its performance. 

Customer Experience Dashboard Examples

Customer experience dashboards can be set up to achieve many different goals. However, here are some examples of how your business can utilize customer experience dashboards to achieve business success. 

Track Metrics Over Time

Customer experience dashboards give you the ability to track your main metrics over time. But, these dashboards can breakdown the data further by filtering by store number, location, region, or any other classification that your business uses.

Mobile Reporting

For customer experience managers or executives on the go, having access to mobile customer experience dashboards can help you stay in touch with your customer experience program wherever you are. You can track metrics and download and share reports with the appropriate stakeholders without ever missing a beat.

Create Your Own Customer Experience Dashboards with InMoment

Creating the ultimate customer experience dashboard involves selecting the right metrics, utilizing a customer experience dashboard template, and designing a user-friendly interface. By focusing on key customer experience dashboard metrics and leveraging real-time data, you can gain valuable insights to enhance your customer experience strategy.

Whether you’re a retail giant, a SaaS provider, or an e-commerce platform, a well-crafted customer experience dashboard is an invaluable asset in understanding and improving customer satisfaction. See how customer experience dashboards can help your business by scheduling a demo today! 

Understanding customer sentiment is essential for businesses trying to enhance their customer experience and drive growth. In this post, we’ll dive into what customer sentiment is, why it matters, and how you can measure and improve it to boost your business performance. But first, let’s go over a few basic definitions of customer sentiment, customer sentiment analysis, and customer sentiment score.

What is Customer Sentiment?

Customer sentiment is the emotions and attitudes expressed by customers towards a brand, product, or service. It includes both positive and negative feelings, like satisfaction, frustration, loyalty, and disappointment. By analyzing customer sentiment, businesses can gain valuable insights into how their customers perceive their offerings and overall brand experience.

Why is Customer Sentiment Important? 

For customer experience leaders, customer sentiment is crucial because it directly impacts customer loyalty, satisfaction, and retention. Understanding how customers feel about your brand can help you identify strengths and areas for improvement. Positive sentiment can lead to increased customer loyalty and advocacy, while negative sentiment can signal issues that need to be addressed to prevent customer churn.

What is Customer Sentiment Analysis?

Customer sentiment analysis involves using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning techniques to analyze customer feedback from various sources— think social media, reviews, surveys, and more. This analysis helps businesses understand the underlying emotions and attitudes expressed by customers, providing actionable insights to improve the customer experience.

What is a Customer Sentiment Score?

A customer sentiment score quantifies the overall sentiment expressed by customers towards a brand or product. This score is typically calculated by analyzing text data and assigning a numerical value to represent the sentiment, ranging from very negative to very positive. As a general rule, a high sentiment score indicates positive customer sentiment, while a low score might mean negative sentiment.

What are the Benefits of Customer Sentiment?

Understanding customer sentiment provides so many advantages for CX leaders—which ultimately lead to both strategic and operational improvements:

1. Enhanced Customer Experience: By pinpointing and addressing pain points revealed through sentiment analysis, businesses can significantly elevate the overall customer experience. Insights into customer emotions and frustrations allow for targeted interventions, leading to smoother interactions and a more positive customer journey.
2. Increased Customer Loyalty: Positive customer sentiment is strongly correlated with higher customer retention and loyalty. When customers feel valued and satisfied, they are more likely to stay loyal to the brand and make repeat purchases, fostering long-term relationships and reducing churn rates.
3. Better Product Development: Sentiment analysis provides valuable feedback on customer preferences and pain points related to products and services. This information is important for informing product development and innovation, allowing businesses to make data-driven decisions and create offerings that better meet customer needs.
4. Improved Marketing Strategies: Understanding the sentiments of your audience helps in crafting more effective marketing messages. By aligning marketing strategies with the emotions and expectations of your customers, you can create campaigns that resonate more deeply, improve engagement, and drive conversions.
5. Early Issue Detection: Monitoring customer sentiment enables businesses to detect negative feedback and emerging issues early. Addressing these problems promptly can prevent them from escalating, which avoids potential damage to your brand’s reputation and maintains a positive customer relationship.

How Can Customer Sentiment Be Used to Improve the Customer Experience?

Customer sentiment can be leveraged to enhance the customer experience in several ways:

1. Personalized Interactions: Use sentiment data to tailor customer interactions and provide personalized experiences.
2. Proactive Support: Address negative sentiment promptly by offering proactive support and resolving issues quickly.
3. Product and Service Improvements: Use insights from sentiment analysis to refine products and services based on customer feedback.
4. Targeted Marketing Campaigns: Develop marketing campaigns that resonate with customer emotions and preferences.

How to Measure Customer Sentiment

Measuring customer sentiment involves many well-defined steps to accurately gauge how customers feel about your brand. 

1. First, collect feedback from various sources, including social media, reviews, surveys, and support interactions. This diverse data set provides a comprehensive view of customer opinions and experiences. 
2. Next, use NLP and sentiment analysis tools to analyze the text data. These tools help identify the emotions and attitudes expressed by customers, converting qualitative feedback into quantifiable insights.
3. After analyzing the data, assign numerical values to calculate the overall customer sentiment score. This score reflects the general sentiment of your customer base, allowing you to benchmark performance and track changes over time. 
4. Lastly, monitor these sentiment scores consistently to identify trends and measure the impact of any changes in your business operations. Be sure to keep a close eye on sentiment trends, as you can proactively address emerging issues and continuously improve the customer experience.

How to Improve Customer Sentiment

Improving customer sentiment is an important part of building a loyal customer base and driving continual growth for your business. After you have measured and analyzed your current customer sentiment, the next step is to improve and to continue improving it. Here are steps to improve your customer sentiment:

1. Identify and Analyze Pain Points
   Understand your customers, including their likes and, more importantly, their dislikes. If you have already measured customer sentiment, you likely have valuable insights from customer interactions. If not, start gathering feedback through surveys, reviews, and direct conversations to understand their needs and pain points. Analyze this data to identify areas for improvement. To avoid feeling overwhelmed by the amount of data, begin by addressing the most common issues and gradually work your way down to less frequent problems. 
2. Create a Strategy to Fix Common Pain Points
   Now that you have identified your customers’ most common pain points, it’s time to develop a strategy to address these issues. Ensure you communicate these insights with your team and other relevant departments. For instance, you may need to collaborate with the customer service team to train them on handling similar inquiries or complaints or work with the IT department to improve your online checkout process. The insights you gain can also inform future improvements in product or service quality.
3. Offer Loyalty Programs and Incentives
   As you continue to address and resolve customer pain points, consider building positive customer sentiment by offering a reward or loyalty program for repeat customers. Providing exclusive offers to loyal customers can also make them feel valued and appreciated.
4. Continue to Monitor and Respond to Feedback
   Improving customer sentiment is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort. Continuously monitor customer feedback and reviews to gain insights into areas that need improvement.
5. Measure and Optimize
   After implementing strategies to improve customer sentiment, measure the success of your efforts by tracking key customer experience KPIs, such as customer satisfaction scores and retention rates. Report on these improvements to gauge the effectiveness of your initiatives.

Customer Sentiment Examples and Use Cases

Here are some examples that show how some of InMoment clients have used customer sentiment to drive significant improvements and achieve better outcomes:

Retail Industry

A leading retail brand harnessed customer sentiment data gathered from social media and online reviews to identify recurring issues and pain points. By analyzing this feedback, the retailer discovered that many customers were dissatisfied with their return policy and customer support services. 

To solve this once and for all, the company revised its return policy to be more flexible and implemented enhanced training for customer support representatives. These changes led to a noticeable increase in customer satisfaction, a reduction in return-related complaints, and an overall boost in customer loyalty that supports a positive retail customer experience.

Hospitality Industry

A well-known hotel chain used customer sentiment monitoring to address areas of concern highlighted by guests. Through sentiment analysis of online reviews and survey feedback, the hotel identified recurring complaints related to cleanliness and service quality. 

The insights gained prompted the hotel chain to implement stricter cleanliness protocols and enhance staff training. These improvements led to a noticeable increase in guest satisfaction scores, a rise in positive online reviews, and a stronger reputation in the hospitality industry and guest experience.

Tech Industry

A prominent software company leveraged sentiment analysis to collect and evaluate feedback on newly launched features. By examining user sentiment, the company was able to determine which features were well-received and which were causing frustration. This analysis guided their product development team in prioritizing updates and enhancements that aligned with customer preferences. As a result, the company improved its software product, increased user satisfaction, and strengthened its competitive edge in the market.

Improve Your Customer Sentiment with InMoment

At InMoment, we specialize in helping businesses understand and improve customer sentiment. Our comprehensive CX solutions and expert team can help you analyze customer feedback, gain valuable insights, and implement strategies to enhance your customer experience. Using our Case Management feature, we can help you reach out to customers with negative sentiment, to try and recover those relationships while you still can. Schedule a demo to learn more.

Customer experience management (CX) can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. That’s where customer experience services (CX services) come in. This blog post explores what CX services are and why more and more companies are turning to expert CX consulting services to enhance their interactions with customers and drive loyalty.

What Are Customer Experience Services?

Customer experience services encompass a range of solutions designed to help businesses manage and enhance their interactions with customers. These services include things like consulting, training, and ongoing support aimed at optimizing every touchpoint in the customer journey. By leveraging CX services, companies can gain deeper insights into customer needs, improve customer satisfaction, and drive brand loyalty.

Example of CX Services

CX services can vary widely depending on the provider, but they typically include:

• CX Consulting Services: Expert advice on developing and implementing CX strategies tailored to your business needs.
• CX Management Services: Ongoing support to manage and optimize your CX programs.
• Bespoke Technology Solutions: Providing unique tools and technology created to achieve your company’s CX goals. 
• Training and Workshops: Educational resources to empower your team with CX best practices.
• Ongoing Support: Continuous assistance to ensure the success of your CX initiatives.
• Strategic Insights: Strategic Insights Specialists are experts in knowing how to turn customer data into actionable insights.

What’s the Difference Between Customer Service and Customer Experience? 

Customer service and customer experience may appear similar, but they differ significantly in focus. Customer experience encompasses the overall relationship customers have with a brand, shaped by all their interactions and experiences with it. In contrast, customer service refers to the support a business provides to its customers before and after a purchase. However, it is crucial that customer service interactions contribute positively to the overall customer experience.

What Are the Benefits of Having Customer Experience Services?

To succeed in today’s competitive environment, you need a true experience partner who feels like

an extension of your organization’s team, not just another vendor you simply transact with. Your experience program is more than just collecting customer feedback and sending reports, your customers are giving you vast amounts of data, and it’s possible that you aren’t getting the most out of that feedback. This is where expert CX services teams come into play, offering more than just technology; they provide the deep insights and strategic guidance necessary to truly elevate your customer experience program.

A CX services team acts as a dedicated partner from the very beginning of your CX program. 

Here are the key benefits of having such a team:

1. In-Depth Data Analysis: Expert CX services teams delve into your customer feedback data, uncovering valuable insights that might otherwise go unnoticed. They go beyond surface-level analysis to identify patterns, trends, and areas for improvement.
2. Strategic Focus: These CX professionals help you understand where to concentrate your efforts for maximum impact. By pinpointing critical areas that need attention, they ensure that your resources are used efficiently and effectively.
3. Return On Investment Opportunities: One of the most significant advantages of having an expert CX services team is their ability to identify opportunities for increased customer retention and revenue growth. They provide strategies to turn customer feedback into actionable business plans that drive revenue and improve ROI.
4. Continuous Improvement: Unlike a self-serve technology provider, an expert CX services team offers ongoing support and guidance. They continuously monitor your CX program, suggest improvements, and help implement changes to ensure that your customer experience evolves and stays ahead of the competition.
5. Tailored Solutions: Every business is unique, and a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works. CX services teams customize their strategies to fit your specific needs, ensuring that the solutions they provide are relevant and effective for your organization.
6. Reduced Complexity: Implementing and managing a comprehensive CX program can be complex and time-consuming. An expert CX services team simplifies this process, handling the intricate details and allowing your internal team to focus on core business activities.

Outsourcing your CX efforts to a specialized provider offers several advantages:

• Expertise: Access to seasoned professionals with deep knowledge of CX strategies and technologies.
• Efficiency: Streamlined processes and tools that save time and resources.
• Improved ROI: Enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty leading to increased revenue.
• Scalability: Solutions that grow with your business needs.
• Focus: Allowing your internal team to concentrate on core business functions while experts handle CX.

What Should You Look For in Customer Experience Services?

When choosing a CX provider, it’s crucial to find a partner who is not only reliable but also capable of rapidly transforming your customer experience. A dependable CX service provider ensures consistency and trustworthiness in their interactions and solutions. Beyond reliability, they should possess the expertise and agility to swiftly implement strategies that enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. This combination of reliability and quick transformation can significantly impact your brand’s reputation and overall success. Consider the following when evaluating potential customer experience services:

• Proven Track Record: Look for providers with a history of delivering successful outcomes.
• Comprehensive Solutions: Ensure they offer a full suite of services from consulting to technology.
• Customization: The ability to tailor solutions to fit your unique business needs.
• Innovative Technology: Ensuring they are leveraging the latest tools to enhance customer interactions and gather insights data such as AI.
• Ongoing Support: Providers who offer continuous assistance and training.
• Measurable Impact: Tools to calculate ROI and measure business impact.

By prioritizing these qualities, you can ensure that your chosen CX service provider will effectively elevate your customer experience, driving growth and customer loyalty.

Choose InMoment for Your CX Services

InMoment stands out as a leader in the CX space, offering a unique blend of technology and consulting services designed to drive business value and improve customer experiences.

• A True CX Partner: Our commitment to your success is evident in every aspect of our services. From cutting-edge software to expert support, we help you evolve your CX program and tackle any business challenge.
• Unparalleled Service: We provide comprehensive workshops, training sessions, and ongoing support to ensure you’re never alone in your CX journey.
• Tailored Solutions: Our solutions are customized to fit your organization’s unique needs, focusing relentlessly on your customers.

At InMoment, we pride ourselves on being more than just a CX vendor. We are your strategic partner in delivering exceptional customer experiences and business improvement outcomes. Our teams collaborate with yours to help stakeholders maximize our platform’s value and understand their role in improving the customer experience. With our CX services, we support your organization in continuously evolving and embracing change, delivering lasting outcomes. Together, we’re one team working towards your goals and ambitions.

Ready to elevate your CX? Schedule a demo today to learn more about our customer experience services and how we can help your business thrive.

As digital transactions become more prevalent, the ecommerce customer experience is critical for its success. Brands that prioritize this aspect of business often find themselves leading the market, while those that neglect it struggle to compete in a crowded landscape. This post is all about exploring what ecommerce customer experience is, why it is important, and how you can enhance it to boost your business.

What is Ecommerce Customer Experience?

Put simply, ecommerce customer experience encompasses every interaction a customer has with your brand online. This means it can include everything from discovering your brand through social media, navigating your website, making a purchase, and receiving support after they make an online purchase. When done perfectly, a holistic ecommerce customer experience approach ensures your customers have a seamless and positive experience at every touchpoint.

The Difference Between Ecommerce Customer Experience and User Experience

While user experience (UX) focuses on the usability and functionality of a website or product, ecommerce customer experience (CX) covers a broader spectrum. Ecommerce CX includes the entire customer journey, from when customer discover your brand, all the way through to post-purchase interactions. UX is a component of CX, but CX also involves emotional and psychological factors, such as how customers feel about your brand and their overall satisfaction.

The Importance of Customer Experience in Ecommerce

The importance of positive CX in ecommerce cannot be overstated. A positive ecommerce customer experience leads to higher customer retention, increased word-of-mouth referrals, and ultimately, higher sales. In a competitive market, providing an exceptional customer experience can be a key differentiator that sets your brand apart.

What Are the Benefits of A Good Ecommerce Customer Experience?

Having a good or even a bad e-commerce customer experience can significantly impact your bottom line. Here are five benefits of a good ecommerce customer experience: 

1. Increased Customer Loyalty: Satisfied customers are more likely to return and make repeat purchases.
2. Higher Conversion Rates: A seamless and enjoyable shopping experience can lead to higher conversion rates.
3. Positive Word-of-Mouth: Happy customers are more likely to recommend your brand to others, expanding your customer base.
4. Competitive Advantage: Offering a superior customer experience can differentiate your brand from competitors.
5. Reduced Customer Churn: A good customer experience reduces the likelihood of customers switching to competitors.

What Happens if You Have a Bad E-commerce Customer Experience?

When you have a poor e-commerce customer experience, it can lead to customer dissatisfaction, negative reviews, and a decline in customer loyalty. This can result in lost sales, reduced repeat business, and damage to your brand’s reputation, ultimately impacting your bottom line.

Ecommerce Customer Experience Examples

When it comes to examples of ecommerce CX, we’ve got some ideas to help your brand stand out: 

1. Personalization: Brands like Amazon use customer data to provide personalized product recommendations.
2. Responsive Customer Support: Zappos is renowned for its exceptional customer service, providing 24/7 support and hassle-free returns.
3. Easy Navigation and Checkout: Shopify offers a streamlined and intuitive shopping experience, reducing friction in the purchase process.
4. Post-Purchase Engagement: Companies like Apple keep customers engaged with follow-up emails, tips, and support options after a purchase.

How to Start Building Your Ecommerce Customer Experience

To start building a strong ecommerce customer experience, it all starts with understanding your customers. Make sure you go through the appropriate market research to unearth insights into your customers’ unique needs and preferences, which will help you tailor your offerings and interactions to meet their expectations.

Customer Journey Mapping

Next, map out the entire customer journey. Identify all the touchpoints where customers interact with your brand, from the initial discovery phase to post-purchase support. Ensure that each touchpoint provides a seamless and positive experience, contributing to overall customer satisfaction. Discover some customer journey mapping examples to help you get started.

Selecting the Right Software

Investing in technology is also crucial. Of course, the InMoment XI Platform can help with stronger signals, richer insights, and smarter actions; but you can also use tools such as CRM systems, chatbots, and other AI integrations to enhance customer interactions. These technologies can streamline processes, provide personalized experiences, and offer timely support, improving the overall customer journey.

Set Your Staff for Success

Finally, focus on training your staff. Equip your team with the skills and knowledge they need to deliver exceptional customer service. A well-trained staff can effectively address customer inquiries, resolve issues, and create a positive impression of your brand, which further enhances the ecommerce customer experience.

How to Improve Ecommerce Customer Experience

Improving ecommerce customer experience involves a few important components that we’ll walk you through below:

Step One—Enhance Website Usability: Ensure your website is easy to navigate, with a clear layout and intuitive design.

Step Two—Optimize for Mobile: A large portion of ecommerce traffic comes from mobile devices, so make sure your site is mobile-friendly.

Step Three—Provide Excellent Customer Support: Offer multiple channels for customer support, including live chat, email, and phone support.

Step Four—Implement Customer Feedback Surveys: Use tools like NPS, CES, and CSAT to gather feedback and identify areas for improvement.

Step Five—Personalize the Experience: Use customer data to provide personalized recommendations and offers.

Step Six—Streamline the Checkout Process: Reduce friction in the checkout process by minimizing steps and offering multiple payment options.

Best Ecommerce Customer Experience

Achieving the best ecommerce customer experience requires a focus on several key best practices. 

Putting Customers First: Building a Customer-Centric Culture

First and foremost, cultivating a customer-centric culture within your organization is essential. When every level of your company prioritizes customer satisfaction, it creates a cohesive and dedicated effort to provide outstanding service.

Embracing Continuous Improvement for Enhanced E-Commerce Customer Experience

Continuous improvement is another critical factor. Regularly analyze customer feedback and make data-driven adjustments to your strategies and processes. This ongoing refinement ensures that your customer experience evolves in line with changing customer needs and expectations.

Boosting Customer Engagement Through Personalized Communication

Engagement and communication are also important components. Keeping customers informed through personalized communication and timely updates can significantly enhance their experience. For example, a leading outdoor equipment retailer implemented a robust email campaign that personalized product recommendations and offered post-purchase tips, resulting in increased customer engagement and loyalty.

Utilize Smart Technology

Leveraging technology can further elevate the customer experience. Advanced tools like AI and machine learning can help predict customer needs, offer personalized experiences, and streamline interactions. For instance, an ecommerce brand used AI-driven chatbots to provide 24/7 customer support, reducing response times and improving customer satisfaction.

Similarly, an ecommerce brand utilizing text analysis software has the ability to view tagged keywords and understand the specific pain points their customers are having. This helps prioritze decisions that need to be made to improve the eccomerce customer experience. 

Champion Customer Feedback

Showcasing success stories and customer testimonials can build trust and credibility. Highlighting real-life examples of satisfied customers can demonstrate your commitment to delivering excellent service and encourage potential customers to choose your brand. For instance, sharing the story of a customer who had a seamless return experience and received exceptional support can illustrate the tangible benefits of your customer-focused approach.

By implementing these best practices, you can create a top-tier ecommerce customer experience that drives customer loyalty, satisfaction, and business growth.

How to Measure Your Ecommerce Customer Experience

Measuring ecommerce customer experience is crucial for continuous improvement. It can uncover strengths and areas for improvement, ensuring customer satisfaction, and ultimately driving business growth. Key metrics to track include:

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measures customer loyalty and likelihood of recommending your brand.
2. Customer Effort Score (CES): Assesses how easy it is for customers to interact with your brand.
3. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Gauges overall customer satisfaction with your products or services.
4. Churn Rate: Tracks the percentage of customers who stop doing business with you.
5. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Estimates the total revenue a customer will generate over their lifetime with your brand.

These customer experience KPIs provide valuable insights into customer loyalty, ease of interaction, overall satisfaction, retention rates, and long-term revenue potential.

Create Your Ecommerce Customer Experience with InMoment

At InMoment, we specialize in helping businesses create exceptional ecommerce customer experiences. Our comprehensive solutions and expert team can assist you in understanding your customers, improving their journey, and driving business growth. Get in touch with us today to learn how we can help you enhance your ecommerce customer experience and achieve your business goals.

By implementing these strategies, you can significantly improve your ecommerce customer experience, leading to happier customers and a more successful business.

What Is Customer Feedback?

Customer feedback can take many forms, but it is defined as any information from customers about their experience with a product or service from a specific company. This can include the customer’s opinions, complaints, suggestions, and compliments. The goal of customer feedback is to understand and meet customer needs and expectations to improve products, services, and overall customer satisfaction. Businesses can collect feedback actively and passively. But no matter how it is collected, it should drive change and action within the company. 

What Is A Customer Feedback Loop?

A customer feedback loop is the complete process of getting feedback, analyzing it, and then responding to it or implementing the feedback into the business. An example of this would be a restaurant collecting customer feedback through surveys, analyzing the responses to identify common complaints about the menu, and then updating the menu items or recipes to better meet customer preferences.

This differs from customer feedback itself because it refers to the entire process of closing the loop, while customer feedback itself just represents the form in which the customer communicates with your organization. 

Why Is Customer Feedback Important?

Customer feedback is so important because it connects you with your customers. It can help you identify areas for improvement, as well as highlight strengths. Furthermore, when customers see that their feedback is valued and acted upon, it fosters a sense of trust and loyalty, encouraging repeat business and positive word-of-mouth.

What Are the Benefits of Collecting Customer Feedback?

Businesses should collect customer feedback for several reasons, including measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty, improving products and services, and identifying new opportunities for growth or improvement. On the flip side, not addressing these issues could create negative business impacts, or even leave money on the table. Check out our VoC ROI calculator below to see how much benefit your organization could realize from investing in customer experience and customer feedback!

Collecting customer feedback can aid in many business initiatives such as: 

Improve Customer Satisfaction

One of the most visible benefits of gathering and analyzing customer feedback is the improvement in customer satisfaction. Customer feedback can help businesses understand what customers like and dislike about their products or services. By addressing areas of dissatisfaction, businesses can improve the customer experience which increases customer satisfaction. 

Improve Business

Customer feedback allows businesses to more quickly and effectively identify problems with their product, services, or experiences. Once the problem has been caught, the business can improve its offerings. By listening to customer feedback, businesses can make changes to their products or services to better meet customer needs.

Identify New Opportunities

Customer feedback can also bring to light new opportunities or ideas for the business, whether that is a new product or a better way of providing customer support. The direct and indirect feedback that a business receives from customers can help identify areas for expansion or new services that customers may be interested in. 

Build Customer Loyalty

Customers like knowing that the companies they frequent are interested in hearing and acting on customer feedback. By actively seeking customer feedback and making changes based on that feedback, businesses can build customer loyalty and foster long-term relationships with their returning customers. 

Calculate your business’s ROI using InMoment’s VoC tools.

Industry

Please Select Automotive Entertainment Financial Services Healthcare Hospitality Insurance Retail All

Number of Customers

Annual revenue Per Customer ($)

Annual Churn Rate (%)

Number of Promoters

Lead to Conversion Rate (%)

Number of calls per year

Percent of calls where issue is not resolved (%)

Estimated Revenue Growth

Use the calculator to find an estimated ROI

Total ICX ROI

Submit two or more calculators to show an overview of what your integrated CX program could return.

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Direct vs Indirect Customer Feedback

The two most common categories that customer feedback can be classified as are direct and indirect. While most customer service strategies focus on collecting direct feedback, indirect feedback can offer a more accurate picture of how customers feel about the company as a whole. 

Direct Feedback

This type of feedback is provided directly by the customer to the business. It is most often provided through surveys, customer service interactions, and focus groups. Although it shortens the process of collecting feedback, it has the risk of gathering responses that are not as honest since customers may just say what they think the business wants to hear.

Indirect Feedback

Indirect feedback is provided by customers through their behavior and actions. It includes customer reviews, social media comments, and website analytics. Indirect feedback is usually an accurate depiction of how customers feel, but it does require a little more effort to gather and analyze.

Types of Customer Customer Feedback

Your customers can interact with your business in a number of ways. They will almost certainly communicate with you in more than one channel, so it is important to your customer feedback program that you understand all the different types of customer feedback. 

Surveys

Surveys can be a powerful and useful tool for collecting customer feedback. A common survey use case would be a post-transactional customer satisfaction survey. Surveys can be used to measure aspects of the customer experience such as quality of the product purchased or the ease of the transaction. One of the great things about surveys is that they can be conducted online, over the phone, or in person. Most often, companies send e-mail surveys for customers to provide feedback about their experience.

Contact Center Interactions

The customer service department, often run out of an omnichannel contact center, is often the first point of contact for customers who have feedback or complaints. Contact center representatives can gather feedback and relay it to the appropriate teams so that the company can adjust its approach in response to customer feedback. A positive experience with the contact center can also improve the customer’s overall satisfaction if their concerns are addressed in a constructive and timely manner. 

Social Media

Social media platforms and social media marketing tools are becoming increasingly popular and effective sources of customer feedback. Customers may use social media to share their experiences, both positive and negative. Although social media can be used to gather direct feedback from surveys and polls, most often the feedback will be indirect and qualitative in nature. 

Customer Reviews

Finally, customer reviews can be a valuable source of feedback. Reviews can be collected directly on a business’s website or on third-party review sites. These reviews play a significant role in how potential customers view a company, so it is important for businesses to stay active and engaged in monitoring and knowing how to respond to Google reviews as well as any other types of reviews. 

How to Analyze Customer Feedback

It is not enough to simply gather as much customer feedback as possible. The true value comes when businesses analyze customer feedback and turn it into action. There are, of course, a few ways to analyze customer feedback. Not all methods of analysis are appropriate for each type of feedback and insight that businesses are looking for, so companies can use any combination of the following based on their needs. 

Text Analysis

Text analysis, specifically text analysis software, is a method of analyzing customer feedback that involves using natural language processing (NLP) to extract insights from text data. If a business sends out a survey that includes open-response questions, it may want to use text analysis to identify common themes, sentiments, and topics in customer responses.

Customer Experience Metrics

Many forms of customer feedback offer numbers and ratings that make up customer experience metrics. These metrics are measures used to track the overall satisfaction of customers. The most common customer experience metrics include the Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES). 

• Net Promoter Score: The NPS is one of the most straightforward metrics that measures how likely a customer is to recommend the brand to their friends and family. It is usually gathered by asking customers to rate their willingness to recommend the product or service on a scale of one to ten.
• Customer Satisfaction Score: CSAT is also relatively straightforward and measures how happy customers are with the product or service they received. Customers rate their satisfaction with the product or service on a scale of one to five.
• Customer Effort Score: A CES uses a scale from one to seven to determine how easy customers feel it is to interact with the company and use its products or services. 

Customer Journey Mapping 

The process of customer journey mapping can be a great way to analyze feedback at different touchpoints in the customer journey to identify potential bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement. If a retail business is getting a lot of feedback about poor customer service, customer journey mapping would help them find out if this is happening in-store, or in the post-purchase phase. 

How to Develop A Customer Feedback Strategy

A customer feedback strategy works as part of the customer feedback loop. Your customer feedback strategy will be a detailed plan of how your business will go about collecting feedback from your customers, as well as how that feedback is implemented into the business. 

1. Define Your Objectives

To develop an effective customer feedback strategy, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. It is important to start by defining your main objectives. Whether you want to improve customer retention, make product or service improvements, or identify new opportunities, these goals will help you keep a clear purpose when collecting feedback. 

2. Identify Feedback Channels

Next, determine which feedback channels make the most sense for your business. These channels should represent the most common ways your customers communicate with you, and where you will have the biggest likelihood of hearing honest feedback. For example, a restaurant may choose to focus on the feedback received from post-transactional email surveys, while an e-commerce business may focus more on online reviews and social media posts. These channels cover areas where each respective business is most likely to hear from and communicate with their customer. 

3. Design Effective Feedback Tools 

Once your feedback channels have been selected, you need to focus on survey design. Ensure your surveys and questionnaires are concise and focused on specific aspects of the customer experience. When designing your feedback tools, it is useful to have a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions, such as rating scales combined with an open-ended question, to get a holistic view of the customer experience.

4. Implement a Feedback Collection System

Choose the right tools and platforms to collect and manage feedback efficiently. You can use tools such as reputation management software to help streamline the feedback collection process. Regardless of the feedback collection system you use, remember that the most successful feedback methods are ones that can aggregate feedback from multiple sources in one place. 

5. Analyze the Feedback

After the feedback is collected, it is time time to analyze what your customers have said. Arguably the most important step in the entire process, this allows you to identify patterns and trends that will lead to actions that will have a positive impact on your business. When analyzing the feedback, use techniques such as sentiment analysis to gauge customer emotions and categorize feedback to pinpoint specific areas of concern or opportunity. Your customers’ feedback is not something that is only analyzed once, it will change over time and will constantly need to be monitored. Be sure to have resources in place that can continuously keep up with what your customers are saying. 

6. Close the Feedback Loop

Closing the customer feedback loop involves responding to customer feedback and making necessary changes based on the insights gathered. Knowing how to respond to reviews will help you communicate to your customers that their feedback has been received and is valued. This step also involves outlining to the customer how their feedback is being implemented and following up with them to make sure they are satisfied. 

7. Prioritize Business Actions

When your customer or client feedback has been received and analyzed, you may end up with a lot of actions that need to be taken to achieve your previously established goal. List all of the actions you could take, and prioritize them based on the impact on customer satisfaction, the feasibility of implementation, and alignment with business goals. There needs to be a balance of quick wins that will drive immediate success as well as long-term strategic initiatives. 

8. Monitor and Measure Results

At the beginning of developing your customer feedback strategy, you should have picked an objective or metric that you were going to measure. After customer feedback has been collected, analyzed, and implemented, it is now time to measure the results against your chosen objective to benchmark performance. As changes are continuously implemented, these metrics need to be regularly assessed to measure the impact of your strategy. 

It is possible that you may not see the results you were hoping for, in which case your strategy might need to be updated. This may look like changing your feedback collection methods, your survey design, or the objective you are focused on. 

9. Foster a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Customer feedback is most effectively collected and implemented when there is a company-wide culture that values it. Ensure all team members understand the importance of feedback and are equipped to contribute to the feedback process. Furthermore, be sure to celebrate the success of your customer feedback initiatives. Whether it is recognizing an employee mentioned in an online review, or a store location that realized increased customer satisfaction. Making all employees feel a part of the customer feedback process will ensure increased participation and success. 

10. Iterate and Adapt

Regardless of your business or industry, customer needs and market conditions are always evolving. To make sure your business does not fall behind, it is important to regularly revisit and refine your customer feedback strategy. Be willing to implement any new feedback channels, tools, or methodologies as you see fit to ensure the continuous success of your customer feedback program. 

Best Practices for Collecting Customer Feedback 

Collecting customer feedback effectively is crucial for gaining valuable insights that can drive improvements and enhance customer satisfaction. Here are some best practices to ensure you gather meaningful and actionable feedback: 

Ensure Anonymity

In some forms of feedback, such as online reviews or social media posts, the customer chooses to let themselves be identified. However, in other forms of feedback, such as email surveys, remaining anonymous is important to the customer and allows them to provide honest and complete feedback. Assure customers that their feedback will be confidential and used solely for improvement purposes.

Focus on Timing 

Timing is one of the most critical factors in collecting customer or client feedback. It is best to ask for feedback soon after a customer interaction, such as a purchase or product delivery, while the interaction or experience is fresh in their mind. For feedback that isn’t necessarily based on a recent customer interaction, such as a biannual customer satisfaction survey, it is best to send the survey at a time when your customers will have time to respond. 

Thank Customers for Their Feedback

Businesses should also thank customers for their feedback and express appreciation. This can help build customer loyalty and foster long-term relationships with customers. Additionally, repeat customers are more likely to provide honest feedback in the future if they feel that their responses are valued and used to make improvements. 

Collect Customer Feedback with InMoment

InMoment’s XI Platform gives you the tools to gather and analyze customer feedback in whatever way works best for your business. InMoment’s tools enable you to stay ahead of your competitors and deliver exceptional customer experiences. Schedule a demo today to see what InMoment can do for you. 

InMoment is excited to announce its recognition as a Leader in the Forrester Wave™: Text Mining and Analytics, Q2 2024. This placement highlights our fierce commitment to innovation, customer satisfaction, and delivering future-proof technological solutions—no matter your business needs.

For some context, The Forrester Wave™ Text Mining and Analytics, Q2 2024 report is a rigorous evaluation of the top text mining and analytics providers. It assesses vendor scores based on three pillars: current product offering, strategy, and market presence, with subcategories that make up each pillar. 

With top scores in 11 subcategories and the second-highest overall score, InMoment continues to set the standard for integrated customer experience (CX) solutions, empowering businesses to harness the full potential of their unstructured data. This recognition validates our approach, reinforcing our position as a trusted partner for enterprises seeking to enhance their CX initiatives. Let’s go over where we stand apart. 

InMoment’s Standout Performance

These are the 11 subcategories we scored the highest possible scores in:

• AI: knowledge-based or symbolic – Strong customization capabilities, transparency, and multitudes of available industry models, coupled with machine learning and generative AI-assisted adjustments.
• AI: GenAI – pre-processing – Strengths focused on our ability to go beyond our standard filtering and search techniques to appropriately guide our generative AI solutions, such as AI Active Listening and Smart Summaries, to return high-quality results without common problems such as hallucinations. 
• AI: GenAI – post-processing – Multiple methods to check the validity of generative AI results, provide robust structures to allow our users to appropriately tailor the generative AI output to suit their brand voice, and log all generated text to understand what took place. 
• DevOps – Applications accessible to a broad set of users with low/no code options for customizations, extensions, automations, and integrations, plus APIs and Git integration for maximum flexibility.
• Document level text mining/NLP – Supporting all industry-standard NLP functions, including classification (via ml models, boolean queries, or against pre-trained taxonomy based on Wikipedia categories), NER, theme/concept extraction, sentiment measurement, summarization, intention, effort, and emotion measurement.  
• Globalization – NLP is available natively in 30 languages using a mixture of linguistic and ML models for each supported language. Currently hosted in North America, EU, Australia and Japan, and available in all regions served by AWS.
• Natural language understanding/NLU – InMoment supports 8 emotions, 11 intents, and has an effort model. Depending on the use case, these are either clause-based or deep-model based.
• Support for All Relevant Use Cases – some of these are:
  • General Purpose Text Mining: Analyzes training transcripts, regulatory updates, and client-specific documents.
  • Omnichannel CX Analytics: Processes text from surveys, social media, voice, reviews, chat, email, and more to understand VOC, trends, and emerging topics, often paired with metrics to analyze impact and churn.
  • Contact Centers: Analyzes call transcripts for categorization, QA, alerting, and enhanced CX with tools like Conversational Intelligence and dashboards for agents and managers.
• Innovation – Following the Lexalytics acquisition, InMoment led text analytics innovation, which is recognized with industry awards. In 2023, we invested significantly in R&D, delivering 126 new features. Our strategy includes enhancing the NLP stack and integrating traditional and deep-learning models, emphasizing user-driven customizations and advanced NLP techniques.
• Road Map
  • Listening: Shifting from static to conversational feedback solicitation.
  • Understanding: Summarizing data for rapid insights and integrating various data types.
  • Automated Action: AI-generated coaching and smart responding combine with historical context for enhanced decision-making.
• Number of Customers – Approximately 3,000 clients globally leverage our text mining and analytics capabilities and platform.

Our approach is founded on meeting the diverse needs of our clients, providing them with the tools and insights necessary to drive impactful CX improvements.

Comparison with Major Competitors 

InMoment’s performance in the Forrester Wave™ report sets us apart from other big CX companies like Qualtrics. We beat out giants like AWS, Google, and IBM in our product offering, and Qualtrics in product offering and strategy. Unlike our competitors, InMoment offers a truly integrated experience that combines data from multiple sources, providing a holistic view of customer feedback.

Comprehensive Use Case Support

Our integrated CX analytics capabilities capture, analyze, and unify feedback from multiple customer feedback channels, including surveys, social media, voice interactions, and more. This integrated, holistic approach empowers businesses with a complete understanding of their customer journey, identifying key pain points and opportunities for improvement. 

Extended Use Cases InMoment’s platform is not limited to traditional CX analytics. We also support extended use cases such as:

Employee Experience (EX) Analytics

 Our tools help businesses understand and improve employee engagement, onboarding processes, and workplace satisfaction.

Social Listening

We provide valuable insights into brand perception and customer sentiment by analyzing sentiment and trends from social media feeds.

Market Intelligence

Our platform supports ad-hoc research, brand awareness studies, and industry trend analysis, helping businesses stay ahead of market changes and consumer expectations.

Contact Center Intelligence

We offer templatized solutions that pull text analytics and revenue-specific insights, enabling businesses to drive sales and improve financial performance.

Client Testimonials

What’s Up Next?

InMoment’s vision for the future focuses on continuous innovation and improvement. Our roadmap includes significant advancements in AI and NLP, particularly  enhancing feedback solicitation and data integration. Here’s how these initiatives will empower your brand:

Conversational Listening: Moving from static to dynamic, conversational feedback solicitation will significantly improve the quality and quantity of customer insights. For instance, real-time conversational analytics will allow your support teams to address issues more promptly and accurately, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

LLM-Powered Listening: Leveraging large language models to enhance the understanding of customer feedback will enable deeper, more nuanced insights. This can help your marketing team create targeted campaigns based on precise customer sentiment and preferences, driving higher engagement and conversion rates.

Non-Text Data Ingestion: Integrating non-textual data sources will provide a more complete view of the customer experience. For example, combining text analytics with visual or behavioral data can give your product development team a holistic view of how customers interact with your products, leading to more user-friendly designs and features.

Automated Action: Implementing AI-assisted frontline coaching and content recommendations will drive efficient customer recovery and engagement. Imagine your customer service platform automatically suggesting the best responses to inquiries based on historical data and context, reducing response times and improving the overall customer experience.

These advancements will position InMoment at the forefront of the CX industry, providing our customers with the toolkit they need to drive customer acquisition, retention, and growth. By integrating these cutting-edge technologies, your brand can stay ahead of the competition, continuously adapt to evolving customer needs, and achieve sustainable business success.

Conclusion

InMoment’s leadership in the Forrester Wave™: Text Mining and Analytics, Q2 2024, is a testament to our relentless pursuit of excellence and innovation, and while we may be smaller than some of the giants—Qualtrics, Google, AWS, IBM—our product offering is even mightier. Our comprehensive platform, advanced AI capabilities, and customer-centric approach set us apart, empowering businesses to achieve significant ROI through enhanced customer experiences.

Discover the power of InMoment’s text mining, analytics, and general CX solutions. Visit our website to learn more about our offerings and why the world’s most customer-centric brands trust InMoment. Schedule a demo with us today and take the first step towards transforming your customer experience program. 

Maintaining customer loyalty has become increasingly challenging in today’s digital-first environment. According to Stanford Swinton, Executive VP at Bain & Company and Founder at NPSx by Bain in Company, we’re witnessing the dawn of the “Third Wave of CX”. But what does this mean for CX leaders?

In a recent podcast featuring Simon Fraser, VP Insights and Consultancy at InMoment, and Stanford Swinton, key strategies to secure brand loyalty amidst the evolving landscape of customer experience (CX) were discussed. Here are the key highlights:

Understanding the Third Wave of CX

The evolution of customer experience (CX) functions mirrors the changing landscape of customer expectations.  The “third wave” of CX represents a paradigm shift in how businesses approach customer experience. Over the past few decades, CX practices have evolved significantly. Initially, the focus was on identifying the most suitable customer experience metrics, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) or customer satisfaction scores. However, this approach has matured, shifting towards a deeper understanding of customer behaviour and feedback loops. Now, in the third wave, the landscape is changing once again. Best practices from five years ago are no longer sufficient. Personalisation has become paramount, necessitating a move towards customer-centric, predictive machine learning. This shift emphasises understanding customer value and leveraging AI to predict outcomes.

Personalisation and Ethical Differentiation

In the third wave, businesses must combine personalisation with values to stand out. While digital strategies and omnichannel experiences were once differentiators, customers now seek tailored experiences and align themselves with brands that stand for something meaningful. There’s a growing trend for companies to differentiate themselves based on their ethical principles and social missions. By prioritising customer enrichment and ethical practices, brands can establish a deeper connection with consumers, fostering long-term loyalty.

Predictive CX and Value Unlocking

Predictive CX goes beyond traditional surveys; it correlates customer sentiment with financial outcomes, providing actionable insights for business growth. Predictive CX leverages AI and machine learning to understand customer behaviour beyond survey responses and in turn, businesses can design targeted experiences that drive value and loyalty.  Understanding who your customers are and categorising their needs, journeys, and drivers of experience is essential. This involves creating a robust customer taxonomy to structure data sets effectively. Both structured and unstructured data play crucial roles in predictive CX. By harnessing predictive analytics, businesses can unlock value from their customers. 

Challenges and Opportunities for Businesses

Transitioning to the third wave of CX presents both challenges and opportunities for businesses. While legacy CX practices may pose initial hurdles, organisations can leverage existing frameworks and garner support from key stakeholders. By aligning CX initiatives with broader business objectives and demonstrating the potential for top-line growth, CX leaders can drive organisational change effectively.

Embracing the Third Wave

In conclusion, securing brand loyalty in the third wave of CX requires a proactive approach to adaptation and innovation. The shift to the third wave of CX is not just a trend; it’s a necessity for businesses looking to thrive in the digital age. By embracing personalised experiences, ethical differentiation, and predictive analytics, companies can secure brand loyalty and drive positive economic outcomes.

Ready to explore the full discussion on securing brand loyalty in the third wave of CX? Listen to the full podcast below!