How to Find and Wield New CX Data Sources
This is where new data is at its most useful—when it’s combined with existing intel and operational and financial metrics, there’s no limit to what companies can learn about their customers, their employees, and themselves.
We’ve talked a lot about COVID-19’s effect on customer experience (CX) data and how that intel has been changed by the pandemic. However, while recent events have certainly changed how companies capture and use CX data, the fact that data shifts constantly hasn’t really changed at all.
This is why it’s important for brands to constantly be on the lookout for new data sources. Companies must look beyond traditional customer listening posts and delve deep for the intelligence that can give them an edge over the competition. So, without further ado, let’s get into how organizations can capture and take action on new sources of CX data.
Listening to Employees
Many brands focus heavily on uncovering new data from current and prospective customers. That’s a good strategy, of course, but companies also need to consider an oft-overlooked source of new data: employees.
Employees can offer businesses a great deal of new data. While the most accessible of these insights may come from customer-facing employees, companies need to talk to their non-customer-facing employees as well. They too experience a brand (albeit from a different perspective), and that directly informs their productivity, brand advocacy, and other factors. Companies can find new and valuable sources of data by listening to all of their employees and getting multiple takes on the organization. Then, CX teams and functional business owners across the enterprise can use that intel to fix processes and make improvements that contribute to an improved experience.
Market Research & Pulse Studies
The term market research gets thrown around quite a bit, but how can companies separate superficial market research from targeted analysis that can help capture actionable experience data?
There are several questions that brands can use to glean new data from the marketplace (not to mention gain a more holistic perspective of how they fit in a vertical). Brands can gather new data by ascertaining how they stack up against the competition. They can also find new data by asking why customers become or remain non-buyers, as well as for these individuals’ overall impressions of the organization.
Asking targeted and specific questions like these gives companies a good indication of where they sit in the marketplace, but they also yield valuable data that can help brands provide an improved experience. This makes market research a critical new data source that rounds out customer and employee listening.
Putting It All Together
Brands that want to truly wield the power of new data sources can’t stop at merely uncovering them. They also need to put that new data into one place if they hope to gain actionable intelligence from it.
Organizations should always desilo their data because doing so gives organizations a holistic view of their entire brand and all their experience efforts. This is where new data is at its most useful—when it’s combined with existing intel and operational and financial metrics, there’s no limit to what companies can learn about their customers, their employees, and themselves. That’s the true power that brands stand to gain when they capture and take action upon new sources of data.
Want to learn more about data and current events’ impact on collecting and understanding it? Click here to learn more.
