Solutions

By Role

By Industry

Products

Conversational Intelligence Trends Report

Want the scoop on how your customers want to interact with businesses in 2025?

XI Platform

Enterprise Architecture

2025 Consumer Trends Report

Download our report to learn about the trends reshaping CX!

Learn & Connect

About InMoment

2025 Reputation Industry Benchmark Report

Get insights on review and rating data in key industries and verticals

Request a Demo

2025 Consumer Experience Trends

Download our report to learn about the trends reshaping CX!

 
Request a Demo

2025 Consumer Experience Trends

Download our report to learn about the trends reshaping CX!

Is Net Promoter Score Dead?

NPS’s benefits have earned it plenty of acclaim since its 2003 debut, but the metric has faced skepticism in recent years from some CX experts. Some of these practitioners have gone so far as to proclaim that NPS is “dead” and that organizations should leave it behind. What follows is a quick, honest look at these claims and at NPS’s place in today’s experience landscape.

The Net Promoter Score® (NPS) and the wider ecosystem to which it belongs, the Net Promoter System®, have long been organizations’ preferred means of evaluating everything from employee and customer satisfaction to internal processes. The reasons for NPS’s popularity are many, but its most attractive features are its speed, ease of use, and its ability to distill the state of almost any experience, department or function into a single number.

NPS’s benefits have earned it plenty of acclaim since its 2003 debut, but the metric has faced skepticism in recent years from some CX experts. Some of these practitioners have gone so far as to proclaim that NPS is “dead” and that organizations should leave it behind. What follows is a quick, honest look at these claims and at NPS’s place in today’s experience landscape.

It’s All About the Numbers(?)

One reason some CX practitioners shy away from the Net Promoter Score is because it’s just a number. How, these experts contend, can a simple number tell organizations what changes to make or what initiatives to undertake in order to achieve transformational success, let alone improve their score?

It’s true that the Net Promoter Score is “just” a number, but companies that focus solely on the metric aren’t tapping its full potential to begin with. Instead, organizations need to look to the deeper movement behind that number: the Net Promoter System. The Net Promoter System promotes customer centricity, continuous improvement, and learning from customer feedback. These principles are hardly outdated in today’s experience landscape, especially since they espouse finding meaning beyond the metric.

The Perils of Scoreboard-Watching

Relying more on the Net Promoter System’s values than the Net Promoter Score may sound well and good, but it also raises a natural question: if the System promotes the principles that the modern experience landscape thrives on, what’s the point of using the score at all?

First, let’s take a step back to discuss the relationship between the Net Promoter Score and companies’ expectations of it. Far too many organizations expect change to come about as a result of merely observing their score. Frankly, this expectation is a cultural problem, not the fault of NPS. Change is no less difficult to attain within an organization than in any other arena of life or business, and as with those other arenas, the only thing organizations can do to affect change is to work hard. Once organizations labor to apply the Net Promoter System’s principles, the metric will take care of itself and finally become an accurate indicator of a company’s standing.

Additionally, while endeavoring to understand the relationship between NPS and a brand’s financial incomes, some organizations may find that another metric, such as OSAT or Likelihood to Repurchase, suits them better. That’s great, but the principles behind the Net Promoter System still apply and can be leveraged even in those other contexts.

NPS Lives

Organizations that shift their focus from the metric to the meaning that the Net Promoter System provides can execute NPS with modern, data-ingesting experience intelligence tools. After all, the Net Promoter System helped bring about the wider customer experience world to begin with (it’s no coincidence that CX began proliferating shortly after NPS’s introduction).

Organizations can use the Net Promoter System and data-ingesting platforms toward the same end: capturing the voice of the customer at its most relevant moments, analyzing sentiments, and delivering those insights to stakeholders that can turn them into action. Because of this, NPS is far from dead—the values and internal business practices it promulgates are relevant to any organization that seeks meaningful, transformational success.

Want to read more about the state of NPS in 2020? Read the full article for free today!

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

A New Recipe for CX Success with Auntie Anne’s

Auntie Anne’s understands that the guest experience and the employee experience are closely connected. But as a quick-service restaurant chain connected through millions of pieces of data and feedback, it became nearly impossible to understand exactly how the two are connected...

Not many of us can resist the enticing and familiar waft of a fresh batch of Auntie Anne’s pretzels. But no matter how phenomenal a product is, there’s always room for a business to take its customer experience (CX) to the next level—and that’s why InMoment stepped into Auntie Anne’s kitchen to cook up a new CX strategy. 

Keep reading to learn how the partnership between InMoment and Auntie Anne’s drove some pretty sweet results for the business. 

Food for Thought: Smarter Data

Auntie Anne’s understands that the guest experience and the employee experience are closely connected. But as a quick-service restaurant chain connected through millions of pieces of data and feedback, it became nearly impossible to understand exactly how the two are connected. Although mystery shopping was the brand’s previous method of receiving feedback, that tactic alone no longer cut it. Auntie Anne’s needed a comprehensive approach, one that would fuel a CX that’s not only meaningful, but delivers results, as well.

Before InMoment, Auntie Anne’s was drowning in data that was siloed and sporadic, which didn’t allow for insights that spurred meaningful change. By linking up with InMoment’s XI Platform, they were able to compile and organize data and rank stores on key metrics, like friendliness and value. Not only did this provide personalized insights to individual stores, but also drummed up friendly competition between franchises. Through this, Auntie Anne’s was able to implement new, successful processes at underperforming stores. 

Don’t Glaze Over the Small Details

According to Forrester, customers who have great experiences are 3.6x times more likely to spend more money with the brand. Research also shows that 3% of total CX-fueled revenue is generated by word of mouth from happy customers. These highly engaged stores also helped achieve higher OSAT, or overall satisfaction,  year over year, which resulted in higher sales. In the three years after implementing InMoment, Auntie Anne’s experienced a 6 point increase in their OSAT score.

The implementation of an intelligent tool such as the XI Platform directly increased Auntie Anne’s bottom line, more than justifying the technology investment for skeptical, higher-up business executives.

Roll the Guest and the Employee Experience into One 

With any company, the guest experience is only half the battle. Getting employees to champion a new CX strategy is key to a full experience transformation. 

That’s where Auntie Anne’s made it personal by implementing a “Guest Care Wall of Fame” to showcase how employees are being praised for their customer experience efforts. The company also inducted franchises into its “20/70 Club,” celebrating stores that receive 20 survey responses per month and achieve an OSAT score of 70 or above. 

These initiatives create HR benefits, too. According to industry research, it can cost up to $2,000 to onboard and train a new employee. When employees are more engaged, they perform better and stay longer, resulting in a cost reduction in employee turnover and training costs across all Auntie Anne’s franchises. 

With a robust CX-program in place and the right intelligent tools, companies like Auntie Anne’s can save dough and dip into new levels of success, ones that produce more business value and profit across the board. 

To read more about Auntie Anne’s sweet customer experience, check out this free webinar in which Chief of Operations Savannah Harper discussed how they leverage customer feedback across their entire organization!

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

3 Steps for Turning Customer Feedback Into Product Innovation

When companies prioritize CX innovation, they will have a much easier job turning hard-won insights into meaningful innovation, and after that first win, establishing enough credibility to drive even more success for their organization. Use your wins to justify the importance of CX to executives and see the business growth flourish first hand.

Optimizing the customer experience for success is a necessity in today’s competitive business environment. And, for any initiative, customer data is the perfect place to start adjusting your strategy. With careful planning, analysis, and execution, you can transform CX intelligence into effective product innovation.

Our webinar, “From Information to Innovation: Using Customer Data to Drive Product Innovation,” helps you identify ways to leverage your CX program to sustain product enhancements that delight customers and drive loyalty. What follows are three notable, in-depth takeaways from that webinar that your organization can leverage to optimize its customer experience strategy.

Start with customer data.

It’s no secret there’s an abundance of data, but it’s rare for that data to produce any drastic change by itself. Often, the hardest part of listening to customers is figuring out which information to utilize and how. Start by taking a hard look at the data you have available, whether it’s surveys, comments, or employee feedback. Then, with either a skilled CX professional or a data-ingesting experience intelligence platform (or, ideally, both), you can begin to piece together information to find common themes.

Scrutinizing the information you already have allows your business to identify problem areas and to improve. Be sure to prioritize the most prevalent issues your company is facing that also have the biggest impact on customer experience. With solid listening tools in place, you can leverage existing insights to drive a better experience for customers across all facets of your organization.  Sometimes, the customer voice at one touch point may even provide insight for a completely different improvement opportunity!

Leverage intelligence tools to fuel strategy.

To go from knowing about a problem to fixing it, you need a plan. Fueling your business with CX intelligence resources and professionals gives product teams specific goals to work toward and issues to resolve. For example, the goal of fixing your product’s layout is much more tangible than broadly improving customer satisfaction (though a properly packaged CX business intelligence tool can enable both).  “Artful” listening allows teams to transcend the superficial to find both deep insights and the root causes of problems.

Your organization’s issues are unique and complex, and should be treated as such. With the right tools, authority, and people, problems can be squashed quicker and more efficiently. Specificity, context, and attention to detail are all unique to CX intelligence—and by leveraging these elements, you can improve your product.

Act quickly, but consistently. 

Achievable success is always the goal, but sustainable growth can be particularly elusive. The key? Proactivity. Data-ingesting experience platforms allow organizations to identify problem areas and develop specific improvement initiatives, but it’s what your teams do after that that really counts.  Bring cross-functional teams together to digest data, tie it to operational processes, and help product teams prioritize long-term change.

Additionally, be sure to measure success so that a model of “listen-understand-improve-monetize” can be repeated. Oftentimes, when working with smart tools, smart people are underutilized. It’s important that your organization treats intelligence as an enabler for customer experience, not a replacement for it.

When companies prioritize CX innovation, they have a much easier time turning hard-won insights into meaningful innovation. After that first win, CX practitioners can establish enough credibility to drive even more success for their organization. Use your wins to both justify the importance of CX to executives and to see the business grow firsthand.

To hear more about how you can utilize your customer feedback to transform your product, watch the full webinar for free today!

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

Top 7 Tips for Writing UX Copy that Improves the User Experience

Software interface design and user experience are interdependent. What connects and drives them is the aspect of visual engagement. If a user finds a platform easy to navigate and enjoyable, they are more likely to use it and to explore additional features, and they are less likely to contact support. These seven tips for writing UX copy will help you contribute to that optimum user experience. Let’s begin by reviewing some fundamentals. 

Fundamentals of Successful UX Copy

People have different attention styles depending on the content, presentation and recurrence of what they are exposed to. Combining visual and text components is important to grasp and guide an individual’s attention when conveying information.
The text content of any user interface has to be:

  • Clear, so users know what you’re saying without confusion or complication;
  • Concise, so you don’t have any extra words or fluff that isn’t necessary;
  • Useful, so the users receive important information;
  • Consistent, so all products have the same terminology, tone, and style. 

Now that we know this, let’s explore the top tips on writing successful copy for UX.

1. Use Real Copy in UI Right Away

UX designers will usually use the “Lorem Ipsum” text when they start work on a user interface. It’s a placeholder text but has no meaning, it just helps them conceptualize what text would look like. This is a bad idea because text should be a part of the design. If it looks good in Lorem Ipsum, it doesn’t mean it will deliver on communication goals once the real text is in place. Using real text also helps to make the prototype feel genuine and easier to connect the concept with the goals. The copy should work with the rest of the layout.

2. Build a Text Hierarchy

Users naturally won’t read every piece of text on the screen. They will scan through it quickly to see if anything jumps out at them. If the hook is good enough, the user will look in more detail. Although pictures are catchier,  text is what will guide users inside a software product.This means that the main message in text should be located right away so the user knows what’s important. 

3. Grab User Attention with Numerals

Studies show that numerals will grab users’ attention when they’re scanning text, even when they’re buried in words. That’s because users think that they’re important facts or stats, which is useful for them. That means your copy can rely on the numbers instead of the word variant. 

4. Be Flexible with Grammar

While it’s important to have correct grammar when it comes to the text UX, if you’re writing microcopy for a button or you have only a few characters to work it, you have to be flexible with grammar. Eliminate all the elements that aren’t important and stay away from complicated sentence structures. For example, avoid punctuation that isn’t necessary. 

5. A/B Test the Copy

The buttons copy is critical for user experience, so you should be spending time to do it right. The button should be clear about what the action is and the next step. It is especially important to test if the designers aren’t the target audience, i.e. if the product is for non-technical users who are unfamiliar with developer jargon. 

6. Be Consistent

You want to make your text natural and consistent, just as though the user were communicating with a human being. Use terminology that makes sense and use the same words everywhere in your copy. Synonyms aren’t useful for a user interface, so avoid putting “delete” in one spot and “remove” somewhere else.

7. Have Accessible Dialogue 

Similar to the previous point, the dialogue should match what the target audience expects. It’s more important to be friendly and accessible instead of being grammatically correct and full of jargon. Make sure you understand your audience and what kind of language they expect. 

By following these suggestions, you can understand the impact that writing has on the user experience and modify your strategy accordingly.

This article was written by Ellie Cloverdale,  technical and career writer with UK Writings and Academized. Ellie loves the intersection between product development and user experience research. 

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

3 Things That Happen When You Level up Your Customer Strategy from Mystery Shopping to a CX Program

Leveling up your customer experience strategy has both quantitative and qualitative benefits for the entire organization. In a highly competitive market, staying ahead is key to staying on top.

In a world where e-commerce is constantly evolving, more and more traditional quality assessment strategies are becoming obsolete. Even though mystery shopping was once the standard approach to assessing service, new technology proves itself to be more effective and more reliable.

Your organization needs an all-encompassing customer experience (CX) strategy that grants you peripheral views of customer service shortcomings, as well as insights into the most critical lines of your business. InMoment’s latest white paper, “Why a Customer Experience Program is More Powerful Than Mystery Shopping,” details what intelligent technology can do that mystery shopping simply cannot. 

The Benefits of Adopting a Holistic CX Program 

Improving the customer experience doesn’t just affect the customer. Your organization can leverage the insights gained from newly implemented technology to make meaningful, transformative business decisions. Here are a few improvements that a holistic approach to feedback can drive for your business: 

#1: You can more closely assess your CX program, and make strategy adjustments as needed.  

Reviews from mystery shopping companies and other traditional modes of quality assessment tend to accumulate over time. Without having direct and instant access to CX results and reviews, odds are your business will make the same mistakes over and over again, negatively impacting customer experiences. 

But with instant real-time access to results, your organization can quickly and efficiently assess information, making necessary strategy adjustments. InMoment’s XI Platform is comprised of three clouds: the CX Cloud, the Employee Experience (EX) Cloud, and the Market Experience (MX) Cloud. The platform garners different types of data formats, including real-time survey responses, analytics, reporting and alerts that deliver immediate results. With this modern technology in place, these clouds can be used individually, or combined to deliver insights from the most critical lines of your business

#2 Your CX and performance data is carefully and optimally organized. 

Not all businesses are the same, so their CX strategies shouldn’t be either. You need a platform that is flexible enough to support all different types of executives within every area of your organization. With a scalable architecture, data can be obtained, stored, organized and distributed to the right people, at the right time, so that everyone gets the relevant insights they need in their roles—from executives to marketing, and HR. 

Additionally, intelligent automation tools can provide external and internal improvements for both customers and employees. For example, InMoment’s XI Platform allows companies to incorporate tried-and-true feedback (like surveys) in a way that doesn’t complicate processes for customers. The insights and results are received in real-time, allowing companies to respond to feedback and implement changes much faster.

#3 You’ll increase your organization’s revenue and performance. 

Among all the other benefits, an intelligent CX strategy also increases the overall performance and reputation of your organization—and results in a better bottom line. Here are just a few notable numbers achieved through a holistic customer experience strategy: 

  • $23 million in potential revenue one InMoment client gained after implementing a closed-loop system. These kinds of customer improvements can help your company identify and retain at-risk customers, in addition to acquiring new ones.  
  • 3.6x more money customers who have great experiences with a brand are more likely to spend with that brand. With the right CX strategy in place, the payoff will come quickly. 
  • 3% increase in CX-fueled revenue. According to Forrester reports, happy customers account for about a 3% bump in revenue potential in most industries. 

Leveling up your customer experience strategy has both quantitative and qualitative benefits for the entire organization. In a highly competitive market, staying ahead is key to staying on top. To learn more about how our XI Platform can take your CX program to the next level, download our white paper, “Why a Customer Experience Program is More Powerful Than Mystery Shopping” here.

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

Step into Their Shoes: Creating Personalized, Inclusive Experiences with Foot Locker

Customer feedback across many different industries shows one common thread: People want to connect with the brands they love in more than just a transactional way. CX intelligence can help revamp the entire experience, from in-store to online—even in the way brands listen to customers.
Foot Locker Store

We live in a fast-paced and sometimes disconnected, impersonal world. Many prefer texting to calling or face-to-face communication.  We shop online for convenience—and because some of us just don’t feel like interacting with a sales associate. Waiting in line at a store or having to call into a service center can be painful. When the retail experience can sometimes be a hassle, why would we bother buying at brick and mortar when we can from the comfort of our homes?

Retailers are struggling to find their fit in this new world: How do they overhaul the retail experience, bring it into the 21st century, and re-engage with this new type of customer in a personalized and inclusive way?

Customer feedback across many different industries shows one common thread: People want to connect with the brands they love in more than just a transactional way. CX intelligence can help revamp the entire experience, from in-store to online—even in the way brands listen to customers.

Our focus at InMoment is to help retailers embrace the future of feedback and create inclusive and personalized experiences for every type of customer. At Forrester CXSF, we partnered with Foot Locker to share how the global retailer is innovating the customer experience at three main touchpoints to bring about a retail transformation.                

How Consolidated Data Helps Foot Locker Gain Holistic Insights

Consolidating its siloed data into one platform with InMoment, Foot Locker was able to carefully identify a diverse array of customer types, from the sneakerhead who wants the latest and greatest in footwear to up their street cred, to the senior citizen who just wants a comfy pair of kicks. In between are the in and out power shoppers, non-sneakerheads, and many others.

 By specifying different categories of customers, Foot Locker has been able to design personalized and inclusive experiences in-store, online, and during the feedback process. 

Foot Locker’s Power Stores and pop-up retail spots are celebrating the local culture of the neighborhoods they serve. Different from the traditional brick and mortar store, Power Stores are a hub for local sneaker culture, art, music, and sports—featuring wall designs from local artists, and custom shoe designs celebrating their hometown. 

With its pop-up stores, Foot Locker is literally meeting customers where they are, setting up shop for instance in parks where kids are playing ball. By partnering with big brands like Nike, sports stars, and other celebrities, Foot Locker is building a stronger brand connection for its customers, building relationships that will continue to attract them to brick and mortar stores. 

These innovative in-store designs are the result of Foot Locker truly understanding who its customers are, thanks to data consolidation. 

When it comes to feedback, Foot Locker partnered with InMoment to create a more personalized and engaging survey experience. Using InMoment’s Video Feedback and Image Upload capabilities, customers can tell their own stories in their own way.  For example, Video Feedback helped customers alert Foot Locker about online orders that arrived in damaged or crumpled shoeboxes. With Video Feedback, Foot Locker can see, hear, and better understand the customer’s emotion by their tone of voice and body language, and it’s a fast and easy way for customers of all ages to interact with the retailer without having to go to the store or call customer service. 

With Image Upload, one customer shared with Foot Locker how excited she was that her son with cerebral palsy was able to find brand-name shoes that fit over his leg braces. In response, Foot Locker reached out to him directly and sent him a gift card to get another pair. The boy’s mother then sang Foot Locker’s praises on Facebook, reminding everyone to “fill out those surveys…someone is listening!”

If the Shoe Fits, Wear It

InMoment CEO Andrew Joiner believes retailers will only succeed in the future if they follow Foot Locker’s example by looking at the big picture: Who customers are and where they’re connecting with the brand. 

“Don’t just collect feedback from a single point – you will get data in multiple channels, but if you look at it holistically and across every point you’re talking to customers through, you get amazing results,” said Joiner. 

By cultivating holistic data with InMoment, Foot Locker is embracing this changing retail world. It’s promising customers through action that interacting with its team in person, online or through feedback is going to be an excellent experience—something many retailers are failing to do in this new retail atmosphere. 

Creating these personalized and inclusive experiences has kept Foot Locker at No. 4 on Forbes’ Most Engaged Companies List, and has increased its OSAT score by six points since 2018. 

But scores aren’t important. What’s vital is that customers feel that brands are stepping into their shoes and connecting with them on a more personal level. That’s what locks in customer loyalty. That’s why Foot Locker is changing the game. And InMoment is honored to be a part of it. 

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

Designing Extraordinary Experiences: Filling the Gaps with Intelligent Automation

In a highly competitive market, traditional methods will no longer cut it. In order to create a meaningful experience that benefits everyone—brands, customers, employees, and the market—you need all-encompassing business intelligence tools that fill the gaps with insights that will drive impactful results. 

In the evolving e-commerce market, consumers have just as much power as brands, if not more. As a result, the demand for intelligent, user-friendly customer experience (CX) has only increased, with no signs of it slowing down.

 In a highly competitive market, traditional methods will no longer cut it. In order to create a meaningful experience that benefits everyone—brands, customers, employees, and the market—you need all-encompassing business intelligence tools that fill the gaps with insights that will drive impactful results. 

InMoment puts the intelligence in intelligent automation. The XI Platform is comprised of three clouds, the CX Cloud, the Employee Experience (EX) Cloud, and the Market Experience (MX) Cloud. Built on a modernized technology stack, these clouds can be used individually or combined to deliver insights from the most critical lines of your business. 

4 Key Drivers in Experience Intelligence Automation

#1: Synthesize

Customer feedback is essential, yes, but there’s more to it than that. Data doesn’t come from just one source or even one format; experience data lives in every part of your business. Our approach widens your lens to a 360-degree view by mining and storing data from a variety of sources—your organization, its products, your market, and your competitors—to identify the most critical intersections of what creates meaningful experiences. With InMoment, science is infused in every part of the XI Platform, which enables the extraction of more data in more formats for even more intelligent business insights.  

#2: Analyze 

Collecting and leveraging data through silos makes it difficult to piece all of the experiences together and even harder to create an effective CX strategy. But with the extraction of data in its original form combined with the unique fusion of sources, our platform easily compiles findings from the customer, employee, and market to take your analytics to the next level. By viewing metrics through the right lens, you can maximize the quality and relevance of the insights that your company receives to transform CX metrics into meaningful analysis, which in turn, gives your company the tools to execute an actionable, data-driven customer experience strategy. 

#3: Prioritize 

Every company strives for meaningful contribution but without the fundamental knowledge of your customers, employees, competition, and the market, you can never truly make informed decisions. InMoment’s XI Platform allows you to customize and tailor the intelligence that users receive, ensuring everyone gets the relevant insights needed. This experience intelligence allows everyone to better understand feedback and prioritize the issues that require immediate action and solve those problems. Our solution is highly scalable to meet your company where you are now and get you where you want to go.

#4: Monetize 

With InMoment’s XI Platform and a fully integrated CX strategy, your business can finally see the big picture. Better customer experience transparency allows your company to turn findings into action that produces more business value and profit. These purposefully designed, extraordinary experiences aid in fostering long-term, measurable growth. 

Want to learn more about how our XI Platform can take your CX program to the next level? Download InMoment’s eBook “Designing Extraordinary Experiences: Combining the Power of Customer, Employee, and Market Experience Intelligence” today.

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

How the Telecom Industry Can Solve Its CX Problems

Research shows that telecommunications companies consistently receive lower customer experience (CX) scores than any other industry. Here are a few tips brands can use to improve the customer experience and ultimately customer retention in the telecom industry! 

There’s a reputation problem facing the future of the telecom industry. 

Research shows that telecommunications companies consistently receive lower customer experience (CX) scores than any other industry. That’s partly because people tend to have much higher customer experience standards for telecoms than they might have for other businesses. But it’s also because many telecoms simply aren’t listening to their customers. And as the streaming war heats up and spurs major changes in the telecom industry, businesses can no longer afford to ignore their customers. 

Here are a few tips brands can use to improve the customer experience and ultimately customer retention in the telecom industry: 

Anticipate Common Problems Before They Occur

It doesn’t have to be a guessing game when it comes to understanding customer needs and problems. Common issues often plague telecom users, especially as they reach certain milestones along the customer journey. 

For example, our research shows that customers are less likely to recommend internet, mobile, or television services around the one-year mark with a provider. Respondents report common frustrations around staff ability, efficiency, and helpfulness, as well as issues with bill clarity and ease of payment. 

Given that this problem is by no means rare, telecom providers should be proactive and engage existing customers before they reach this milestone. Check in with customers about their points of concern and educate them to avoid any confusion that may create bigger problems down the line. 

Approach Efforts to Automate Wisely

Automation in the telecom industry has changed the game for many companies through the use of AI-enabled chatbots. AI can ease the burden on swamped customer service reps and provide more convenient options for customers to engage with businesses. But no matter how helpful this technology can be, it can never fully replace human interaction.

Poor customer service is a top contributing factor to user dissatisfaction. As a result, telecom companies must review all problems that occur and make sure their chatbots are not used at the wrong times and making issues worse. Every customer resolution strategy should blend automation options with the possibility of intervention by a human customer service rep. This should be a seamless process; that way, if problems are escalated from bots then service reps have all the data and information needed to avoid wasting customer time. 

Engage Customers on Their Own Terms 

It’s hard to understand all of the unique problems your customers face if they can’t easily provide insightful feedback. And given that customer needs and preferences vary, one size does not fit all when it comes to the options for soliciting this feedback. Customers should be able to choose from a diverse range of channels to solve their problems in the ways that are easiest and most productive for them. 

Give customers opportunities to engage via interactive methods—through voice, video, image, and more—beyond just the standard survey. This provides more meaningful and insightful data with details that matter so you can easily improve your CX. Regardless of how your customers choose to engage, make sure their transition from survey to video chat or phone call with a rep is seamless and consistent. 

There are no guarantees in the future of telecom. But your survival in an increasingly competitive space depends on your ability to step in the shoes of your customers and understand their needs and issues. If you can harness the voice of the customer to improve your customer experience, you’re already ahead. 

For more information, download our “CX in the Telecom Industry“ eBook today. 

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

How Hospitality and Entertainment Brands Can Future-Proof the Guest Experience

There’s a path to providing better guest experience, and it begins with considering what guests are truly after (it’s much more than a purchase) and leveraging the right strategies that can help you improve the guest experience today and redesign it for tomorrow.

Last week, I led a roundtable discussion at the Future Guest Experience 2019 conference, where I had a chance to chat with executives and CX experts who are searching for ways to future-proof their guest experiences.

One of the biggest challenges that I’ve seen businesses face today is creating experiences that are both consistent and memorable. The truth is that it’s no longer enough to provide an experience that is solely consistent or memorable; the former lacks novelty, while the latter lacks, well, consistency. At the same time, companies must also strive to provide these experiences today and in the future—essentially “future-proofing” their brand against issues that guests might experience with it.

Fortunately, there’s a path to providing better guest experience, and it begins with considering what guests are truly after (it’s much more than a purchase) and leveraging the right strategies that can help you improve the guest experience today and redesign it for tomorrow.

Here are a few strategies to get you started:

Improving Experiences Today

In today’s experience economy, it’s no longer enough for a business to merely provide products. Guests seek much more than a transaction; they’re after an emotional connection that creates a memorable experience.

Consider a guest who meets with their friends regularly at a restaurant; eventually, their experience transcends ordering an appetizer and becomes fond memories of dinnertime conversation. Unfortunately, typical survey approaches cannot capture the emotion that makes these experiences memorable.

Just so we’re clear, questions that offer guests a zero-to-ten scale to define their satisfaction aren’t going to properly reflect those guests’ true feelings. The best way to capture a guest’s experience is to let them describe it in their own terms. 

In my experience, providing surveys with open-ended questions, reading comments and analyzing the common themes therein are an effective means of identifying today’s drawbacks and successes. Using this method, businesses can pinpoint where they might be coming up short and—thanks to that aforementioned feedback—create plans that result in transformative change and consistent, memorable experiences.

Redesigning for Tomorrow

Companies that leverage CX technology to staunch today’s problems are well-positioned to keep them from popping back up tomorrow. The only way to truly future-proof an experience, though, is to stay proactive. 

Future proofing starts with combining guest and loyalty data. Companies that can accomplish this will achieve an unparalleled view of the brand experience that their guests are having. That’s what future-proofing is really about: capturing guest data and preferences at the point of contact, then using that information to design new, more personalized experiences.

Numerous companies are taking advantage of future-proofing. For example, several retailers have begun combining facial recognition technology with CRM data; this information is then forwarded to frontline employees to ensure a more personalized experience.

What You Need to Future-Proof Tomorrow—Now

I’ve seen companies that take the time and effort to use unstructured guest feedback capabilities reap sizable benefits. At the same time, it is important to remember that the intelligence you receive from your guest experience efforts is only effective if you act on it.

That proactivity shouldn’t be limited to guest experience, either. Companies that can combine CX data with the right hiring, onboarding, and training processes to deliver a better employee experience will be best-positioned to future-proof their experiences. The more of these pieces that businesses have in place, the better off their future-proofing will be.

Of course, all of this is easier said than done. Even the most CX-savvy companies may find it challenging to isolate their brand’s signal from the noise and balance short-term fixes with long-term improvements. InMoment’s customizable guest experience platform and inveterate consultants make it an ideal place to start for any company considering future-proofing. 

If you’re ready to take the next step toward improving your guest experience today and creating memorable experiences tomorrow, reach out and schedule a demo today to see how the InMoment platform can work for you!

Eric Smuda has built a distinguished career out of turning venerable brands into CX powerhouses. His novel, impassioned approach to customer experience implementation changed the face of the rental car industry, in which he found award-winning ways to connect customers and companies. It’s only fitting, then, that Eric serves as a Principal of CX Strategy & Enablement at InMoment, lending his seasoned perspective to many of the company’s strategies.

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

Why Measuring Employee Experience Builds a Better Customer Experience

To better understand how to improve customer experience, companies need to harness the positive effects of employee experience. This starts with accurately measuring employees’ true feelings about their roles and the overall workplace. From there, a business can develop an actionable EX index and use it to focus their resources and drive impactful change. 

Customer experience (CX) is often driven by one seemingly universal edict: The customer is always right. But forward-thinking companies are gathering data about what actually pleases customers—and it turns out employees’ own happiness is an integral factor.

InMoment’s own CX Trends research found employees are the single largest factor in making or breaking the customer experience. The data shows a positive link between employee experience (EX) and a great customer experience, in addition to significant financial gains like increased sales and the ability to maximize business performance. In fact, companies in the top quartile for employee experience see triple the return on assets compared to those in the bottom quartile. 

Employees who feel engaged and valued will often remain loyal, productive members of their company. They’re also more likely to turn this positive energy toward tasks that benefit customers, whether they’re helping a shopper choose a new outfit or writing code for a customer-facing app.  

To better understand how to improve customer experience, companies need to harness the positive effects of employee experience. This starts with accurately measuring employees’ true feelings about their roles and the overall workplace. From there, a business can develop an actionable EX index and use it to focus their resources and drive impactful change. 

However, working for a company inspires emotions, purpose, and connections that can’t be measured by only asking simple questions. This means metrics like Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS), which doesn’t target these factors and instead is rooted in gauging an employee’s enthusiasm, are inherently inaccurate. The eNPS metric is also based on the misconception that people are as likely to recommend a workplace as they are to recommend a product or service; in reality, they’re notably less likely to do so.

Therefore, companies need to apply behavioral science to truly understand employee experience and employee engagement, and how it ultimately drives customer experience. We recommend measuring the following five elements, which were partly informed by a definition developed by Dr. Wilmar Schaufeli, professor of work and organizational psychology, and his colleagues.

#1: Vigor 

This is the energy an employee invests in their job, and the inspiration they draw on during tough times. Vigor measures an employee’s feelings surrounding their work rather than how they execute that work. 

#2: Absorption 

Absorption measures the way vigor appears in employees’ day-to-day work. In this sense, absorption is defined as the state of being so immersed in a task that employees have no desire to break away. 

#3: Dedication 

Dedication indicates employees’ long-term commitment and pride in their work. It shows how both emotion and action last over time. 

#4: Culture

An employee can’t sustain high levels of vigor, absorption, and dedication without a strong, positive work culture to support them. Culture isn’t just benefits and perks; it’s a sense of fitting into a larger, more meaningful whole. 

#5: Orientation Toward the Customer

A great employee experience does more than keep employees happy: It drives meaningful results for the customer. Companies should check in to make sure employees are directing their energy toward this key goal and others that are relevant and strategic to the brand.

When it comes to employee experience, employee engagement is only part of the story. That’s why, to gain actionable insights and improve customer experience, companies should measure external factors that drive employee behavior, as well as employee experience’s impact on customer experience at their specific company. Are employees directing their vigor at serving clients or impressing their managers? The answer matters to your long-term customer experience—and long-term success.

Learn more about the specific questions you should be asking your employees in this featured article!

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

Unlock Expert Guidance on Today's CX Challenges & Opportunities

From proving ROI and navigating budget constraints to adopting AI and creating seamless omnichannel experiences, these challenges are shaping the future of customer experience. In this report, discover actionable insights and recommendations from our CX experts to help you overcome these obstacles and drive growth.

10 Steps to Easily Build An Integrated Customer Experience Program

A game-changing guide for your team on how to build & implement a competitive, fully-stacked integrated CX program.

How Restaurant Brands Can Guarantee Great Guest Experiences with Third-Party Meal Delivery

Restaurants that do decide third-party delivery services are worth the risk need a way to measure the full effect that these offerings are having on their brand. That means engaging tools within your guest experience management platform to give your brand the opportunity to connect with diners as if you were delivering their meals yourself.
Pizza

To leverage a third-party delivery company, or to go it alone? That’s the question facing many franchise and independent restaurants. Today’s diners love meal delivery services; the average person has two food delivery apps on their phone and uses them three times a month. More than half (54%) of users start their meal search with a specific restaurant in mind, then look for it in an app. So if your restaurant isn’t available on food delivery apps, guests may move on to your competition. 

But those wary of jumping on board with a restaurant delivery brand like Grubhub and DoorDash worry about putting their guests’ experience—from the state of the food at arrival to the speed at which it arrives—in someone else’s hands. (There’s also the startling fact that one-fourth of delivery drivers admit to sneaking a bite of a guest’s food.)

Restaurants that do decide third-party delivery services are worth the risk need a way to measure the full effect that these offerings are having on their brand. That means engaging tools within your guest experience management platform to give your brand the opportunity to connect with diners as if you were delivering their meals yourself.

In our latest report, “How to Measure the Effect of Third-party Delivery on Your Brand,” we delve into a few ways your restaurant can leverage guest experience solutions to make sure your diners are getting the quality delivery experience they expect. 

Leverage Email Surveys

While guests may be able to gain instant access to your brand’s online surveys via their food receipts, there’s no guarantee with third-party delivery services that those receipts will even reach guests’ hands. 

To combat this potential gap, restaurants can shift their tactics away from receipt feedback requests to follow-up emails. This leverages a key benefit of food delivery services—access to your guests’ personal data, including email addresses—and allows you to personalize emails based on when and what a guest orders. 

When setting up your email surveys, don’t forget to factor in relevance. Since guests who received delivery orders weren’t served in your restaurant (this time), you won’t want to ask questions about your servers or cleanliness. Instead, focus on the flavor, temperature and quality of the food. Asking the right questions shows guests you’re paying attention and are truly invested in their overall experience.

Contrast Guests’ Experiences

One of the many advantages of a leading guest experience management platform is that it can measure multiple touchpoints. While your goal may be to gather feedback on guests’ food delivery experience, you can also compare and benchmark that data against their dine-in visits. You can even go so far as to break down those third-party experiences by brand (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, etc.) to see which is best representing your restaurant—and which one could be doing damage.

Your most important benchmarking data, however, will come from crunching some numbers. Work with your guest experience team to find an average spend for each guest in a variety of groups (dining-in versus delivery, one third-party brand versus another, etc.). When you multiply that number by the amount of negative experiences in each group, you’ll gain a window into your potential losses if those guests leave your brand—and the numbers show exactly where you need to improve. 

Find Out What’s Really Important to Your Guests

At its core, the ultimate goal behind guest feedback is to maintain a quality experience, improve your service based on wants and needs, then maintain guest loyalty. We already know that more than two-thirds of guests report that “staff interaction” highly influences their ongoing brand decision making. But what about guests who receive your food via third-party delivery services? We can’t assume they’re influenced by the same factors.

That’s where follow-up email surveys can prove a gold mine. Nearly one-third of diners say they buy more food when ordering delivery versus dining in. Why is that? What extras are they ordering? Additionally, you can gain feedback about the delivery experience beyond food. More than one-third (36%) of guests say they would pay more for eco-friendly packaging—do yours feel the same? Do they prioritize friendly drivers and speedy delivery? Your survey can reveal answers to all these questions.

Restaurants that use third-party delivery know they’ve already opened up a variety of new revenue streams. But there’s plenty they don’t know about food delivery experiences. Guest experience management platforms deliver the tools to clear up these mysteries, and help restaurants maintain great diner experiences, no matter where they’re eating. 

To learn more about how you can use your guest experience management platform to guarantee great experiences with third-party delivery, check out our latest eBook, “How to Measure the Effect of Third-party Delivery on Your Brand.”

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

How to Create a CX Strategy for Sustained Success

The good news for CX practitioners is there are simple measures you can take to ensure your CX strategy is not only effective, but fosters relationships with buyers to increase customer satisfaction—and most importantly, retention. 
Create a CX Strategy for Sustained Success

For brands looking to gain a competitive edge in a customer-centric, digital-first era, quality customer experience (CX) separates the companies that excel from those that fall behind. 

Despite valiant efforts from brands to make customer experience strategies a core part of their business, 70% of CX initiatives risk losing funding—and failing altogether—by not providing enough business value. And while roughly 80% of brands want to compete based on customer experience, only 7% of CX strategies result in competitive differentiation.

However, these numbers aren’t cause for panic. The good news is there are simple measures you can take to ensure your CX strategy is not only effective, but fosters relationships with buyers to increase customer satisfaction—and most importantly, retention. 

3 Steps You Can Take to Improve the Lifespan of Your CX Strategy 

Good CX strategies involve more than occasional customer surveys and scoring systems. They need to be actionable, iterative plans that evolve with customer habits and expectations. 

Simon Fraser, VP of XI Strategy, discussed CX challenges facing brands in the webinar “Delights, Customers, Action”, where they uncover what you can do to overcome CX strategy-related challenges, and develop a plan for success:

Step 1: Take time to ask questions before you roll out a strategy.

It’s difficult to thoughtfully execute CX initiatives when you don’t take the time to ask yourself, “What do we want to accomplish?” Before implementing a full CX strategy, work with your team to compile answers to a few key questions. What is your desired outcome? What obstacles can you anticipate? Who needs to be involved? Once these questions have been asked you can get to work on answering each one, and ensure your strategy addresses any preemptive concerns. 

Step 2: Don’t be afraid to test and reimagine your strategies.

Brands often get caught up in early CX success and become complacent, instead of focusing on how they can continue to improve. It’s important to remember that successful CX strategies should involve ongoing testing, validation and iteration. Factors like buyer expectations constantly shift—and you’ll want your strategy to adjust accordingly. 

Step 3: Make customer sentiment a part of your CX strategy.

Great customer experiences involve fully listening to customer stories. And when you go beyond quantitative customer experience metrics, you unlock customer intelligence that allows you to understand and identify the actions to take based on what creates those meaningful, memorable experiences. Take this information and integrate it into your CX approach. That way, you can not only continuously improve, but you can also iterate your strategies based an actionable, first-hand data. 

Customer experience shouldn’t trip up organizations. It should be an opportunity to understand your core buyers, drive ROI and gain an edge on competitors. And by taking a careful, comprehensive approach to developing your CX strategy, the chance of sustained success only improves. 

Watch the Video – See InMoment in Action

Check out a quick demo video to learn more about how our solutions can help your team grow your business.

Change Region

Selecting a different region will change the language and content of inmoment.com

North America
United States/Canada (English)
Europe
DACH (Deutsch) United Kingdom (English)
Asia Pacific
Australia (English) New Zealand (English) Asia (English)