Top 10 AI Terms Every CX Pro Should Know

Here are ten artificial intelligence (AI) terms every CX professional needs to know to keep up with the customer intelligence conversation.

There’s a lot of talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in CX these days, and while most CX pros won’t ever write an algorithm, understanding the fundamentals of analytics and AI is no longer an option — it’s a necessity.  Following are the top 10 key AI terms every CX practitioner must know in order to keep up with the AI conversation:

1. Artificial Intelligence

Advanced software that automates the learning and performing of tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as learning, decision-making, speech and image recognition, and translations.

2. Analytics

The detailed examination of data as the basis for discussion or interpretation. There are a variety of types of analytics processes. Gartner breaks them out this way:

    • DescriptiveCharacterized by traditional business intelligence (BI) and visualizations such as pie charts, bar charts, line graphs, tables, or generated narratives.

“What happened?”

    • Diagnostics – Characterized by techniques such as drill-down, data discovery, data mining and correlations.

“Why did it happen?”

    • Predictive – Characterized by techniques such as regression analysis, forecasting, multivariate statistics, pattern matching, predictive modeling, and forecasting.

“What is going to happen?”

    • Prescriptive – Characterized by techniques such as graph analysis, simulation, complex event processing, neural networks, recommendation engines, heuristics, and machine learning.

“What should be done?”

3. Machine Learning

This is a term sometimes used interchangeably with AI, but in fact, it’s one just one component, albeit an important one. Machine learning is computers the ability to learn a task or function without being explicitly programmed. There are several different types of machine learning, including:

  • SupervisedThe task or function is learned from labeled training data, most often curated by a human.  The algorithm adapts to new situations by generalizing from the training data to act in a “reasonable” way.
  • Unsupervised – The task or function is learned from hidden structures in “unlabeled” data. Because the dataset is unlabeled, there is no evaluation of the accuracy for the outputted model.
  • Neural Networks – A number of processors operating in parallel and arranged in tiers. The first tier receives the raw data, and then passes on its “knowledge” to each successive tier.
  • Deep Learning – a machine learning model that leverages hierarchical representation of the data. This is best illustrated when used with Neural Networks.

4. Algorithms

A set of rules or process to be performed in calculations, especially by a computer.

5. Models

Algorithms that analyze and visualize data through a specific lens. Some notable types of models include:

  • Anomaly – Recognition of a significant change in the data being monitored. (E.g. an increase in frequency of a particular issue being discussed by customers.)
  • Churn – The likelihood of loss, especially of a customer or employee leaving an organization.
  • Recommendation – A set of instructions given that will improve a specific key metric.
  • Financial Forecast – Using historical performance data, a prediction about future performance is made.

6. Speech Analysis

Recognition of customer tone, pitch, and volume to determine customer sentiment and emotion.

7. Automated Speech Transcription (Speech-to-Text)

Automated recognition of digitized speech wavelengths converted to text.

8. Facial Recognition

Machine learning applied to images to identify the key characteristics of human faces.  Typical applications include identifying a particular person (to unlock a device) or the emotions they may be expressing (a customer is unhappy).

9. Text Analytics

Identification of valuable concepts from human-created text data (social reviews, survey comments)

  • Natural Language Processing (NLP) – The application of computer processing to deriving patterns and meaning from large sets of text-based data. There are two types of NLP, rule-based and machine learning. With rule-based, human curation plays a role in creating and refining dictionaries, rules and patterns, which are then coded into the to the computer. With machine learning, the computer learns from existing data sets and then automatically generates the rules that drive the analysis of the text data.  
  • Natural Language Generation (NLG) – The automated creation of text data using computational linguistics to streamline the interaction between humans and computers. Siri and Alexa are examples of NLG.

10. Internet of Things

The interconnection via the internet of everyday computing devices enabling them to send and receive data. For example, the Bluetooth connection between your phone and car.

To read more about InMoment’s advanced analytics and the intelligence they provide, click here!

4 Lessons on Launching a VoC Program from Choctaw Nation

Here are four lessons a major entertainment conglomerate learned when implementing their voice of customer and CX program.

InMoment recently hosted a webinar with three of our clients to discuss the lessons they’ve learned as they worked to establish their CX program. In “Three Things I Wish I Would Have Known When Starting/Growing a CX Program,” I facilitated interviews with Choctaw Nation, Tony Roma’s, and Discount Tire, where we discussed lessons from their individual CX journeys.

The discussion was incredibly informative and eye-opening, so for those of you who were unable to tune in, I will be writing a three-part series where I review my favorite insights from each of the client interviews. Let’s dive in!

The first client we interviewed was Choctaw Nation, an Oklahoma-based business that operates gaming sites, resorts, RV parks, a printing company, travel plazas, farms and ranches, and a country market. With so many customer journeys the brand decided to implement its first formal customer feedback management program with InMoment in order to hear and respond to customer stories.

Tommy Rhoads, executive director of guest experience and operational excellence, joined our webinar to discuss his experience implementing Choctaw’s new program and shared four lessons for other practitioners who are just starting their CX journeys.

1. Set expectations.

The first lesson Tommy shared was that any organization new to a formal VoC program must set expectations for what will happen after implementation. Tommy explained, “Customers are going to complain. Yes, customers are going to have something to say about your business, and you know, that’s really okay!” He then went on to emphasize what we here at InMoment truly believe about negative feedback: that though it may feel negative at first, this feedback is ultimately an opportunity to show your customer that you’re listening to their voice.

When you start formalizing your approach to customer feedback, it is important to expect that there will be negative feedback, but instead of dwelling on it, use it as an opportunity to identify areas for improvement.

2. Anticipate and prepare.

The next lesson Tommy described involved taking a critical look at what you already know about your business’s existing customer experience. What are the known issues you have as an organization? By identifying these before customer feedback starts pouring in, you have the opportunity to start making a plan and “look at the capability of the organization versus the capacity… to [address] it and… meet the needs of our customers.”

Tommy said that in his mind, this initial overview before implementation is the most critical step you can take when starting your CX journey (and I’d have to agree)!

3. Be flexible.

This lesson is all about expecting the unexpected. Preparation can take you a long way, but it is just a fact of the journey that unknown issues will arise. In this case, it is imperative for businesses to be flexible.

Tommy describes this flexibility as “collaborative recalibration,” or the process in which a business sits down, faces the unexpected issue, and puts a plan in place that allows them to take action. This kind of flexible approach is what will really allow your company to bounce back from unexpected issues and find CX success!

4. Don’t lose sight of the big picture.

With the incredible amounts of new customer data you will get when first applying your VoC program, it can be easy to get caught up in the minutia. In the first 13 days of Choctaw’s new program, they received 8,000 responses. Safe to say, they felt like they had a lot of work to do.

Tommy said that in the face of what might have been an overwhelming situation, they were able to find inspiration from their big picture. They knew that this feedback would be pivotal in providing the type of experiences they wanted to, and would ultimately help them to meet all their goals as a company. They also took a look at their core cultural values as a company, and returned to their task with the intention of not focusing on the negative, but emphasizing the positive. It is with this big picture outlook that Choctaw was able to start off its formal VoC efforts on the right foot.

Starting off a new customer listening program is no easy feat, but it helps to hear from organizations who have been there before and can offer first-hand advice on how to overcome CX hurdles.

3 Ways Telecoms (and Other Businesses) Can Improve their Customer Experiences

How can the telecommunication industry improve customer experience? Our research revealed three key ways...

In today’s digital world, consumers’ dependency on telecom services like mobile, streaming and the almighty internet will continue to increase. And while this ever increasing demand means higher revenues for telecom, it hasn’t translated into good news for customers. While seeing some improvement in recent years, the telecom industry still hovers at or near the bottom of every major customer experience index.

The downside of being essential

With many lines of service – especially internet access – perceived by consumers as a necessity akin to oxygen, unsatisfactory experiences are magnified. When they’re working fine, however, no one is celebrating the service. And even when customers report feeling satisfied, they are incredibly stingy with the next level of relationship: loyalty.

According the our recent research, the downward spiral starts early. InMoment’s report, Customer Experience in the Telecom Industry, found that satisfaction plummets at the one-year mark – across all lines of service (TV, internet, mobile, etc.). During the initial honeymoon phase, the technology is still shiny and new, and introductory customer deals are still in place. But as service failures happen and introductory pricing is replaced by sometimes shockingly higher bills, deep frustration sets in. And while satisfaction does bounce back, it never fully recovers.

This dissatisfaction causes customers to look to greener pastures. Telecoms spend an inordinate number of resources luring new customers away from competitors. And while strong acquisition rates are highly prized by shareholders, the result is often a matter of “be careful what you wish for…”  The same study found that most of the time, these hard-won new customers are much less satisfied with their new provider than the one they abandoned. It may be a matter of inflated expectations, lofty promises, or a combination of both. Either way, these new, unhappy customers can be more tenuous and more expensive to maintain.

While telecoms face significant challenges, the research also reveals some steps they can take to make real improvements in customer relationships, and their business.

Continuously engage

Regularly engaging customers and consistently asking for feedback will help telecoms avoid unpleasant surprises and find new ways to enrich the relationships. A significant increase in a subscription fee or changes to an offering should never be a surprise. Concerted efforts to communicate changes and ensure customers fully understand and are enjoying the full value of their service can ease the transition.

Another major challenge for telecoms is service interruptions, some of which are within their control, and some of which are not. Either way, transparent and honest communication is the best policy. The Metropolitan Transport Authority in New York recently started being transparent with customers about train delays, and customers were reported to act less hostile, especially when they understood delays were not the train’s fault. Another key to successful regular and proactive communication is offering multiple, connected contact channels to alleviate customer frustration of having to restart the resolution process or have to re-enter information like their name and account number. A diverse group of channels ensures consumers can contact their telecom in the way that’s most natural and convenient for them, and have a seamless experience when they choose to switch.

Prioritize human interaction

Although AI and automated chatbot usage have increased and can add efficiency to the brand-customer equation, deploying these technologies at the wrong times increase frustration. Easy access to human representatives — especially for complex issues — is one of the best things companies can do to effectively solve problems.

The study found that customers across nearly every service line who had a personal interaction with a brand representative reported higher satisfaction levels than those who had not. Another report found that 67 percent of customers have hung up the phone if they weren’t able to talk to a real person, and another revealed that a bad phone experience would send three quarters of consumers to a competitor. That’s why it’s vital to both provide live human channels, and conduct comprehensive training for those in client-facing roles to ensure they’re well-prepared to thoroughly address each customer issue.

Technology investments should augment human efforts, providing agents with the information and context to handle more service requests faster, and more effectively. However, this cannot happen if customer queries and user information are not seamlessly exchanged between intelligent systems and their human counterparts.

Offer a range of engagement options

Because customers’ needs are varying, they should have access to varying channels for customer support as well. After all, different situations call for different paths to customer service.

For example. landline phone issues aren’t conveniently solved at a physical location—the device can’t even be brought into the store, so perhaps an online chat portal is a better fit. But when it it comes to issues surrounding mobile connectivity, in-store could be the perfect opportunity to bring in the actual device and dialogue face-to-face with a representative for a troubleshooting session.

The challenge to this upgrade in contact channel options means more experiences for telecoms to manage, though no matter where the telecom and customer interact, the experience should remain consistent. As telecom technology moves forward and a fast, quality internet connection becomes all-the-more a necessity, the investment will prove itself more than worth it in due time.

The most important piece of counsel any brand can receive is to invest generous resources in really listening to customers. Listening is more that doling out surveys, providing comment forms on your website, and even offering a real human to hear a complaint. With today’s technologies, customer listening can be always-on, multifaceted, and feel a lot more like a reciprocal conversation than an interrogation. Listening also consists of letting the customer know you’ve heard them, and taking their advice. Just like any human relationship, it’s not nice to ask if you have no intention of responding with integrity.  The logistics in doing this may be infinitely complex, but the rules of good human relationships remain pretty simple.

If telecoms will let them, customers can serve as valued consultants in helping these organizations focus resources in the right places to have an impact that matters to both customers and the bottom line.

Why is Customer Experience becoming the primary way companies differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded market? How does CX pave the way for growth? How do you measure it accurately (and actionably) – and how can you leverage customer feedback for happier customers, more referrals, and more sales?

We asked all of these questions and more of CX experts at the top of their field – and their answers will inspire you.

Customer Experience Experts on Growth

Customer Experience is inextricably linked to growth – when you give the customers not only what they want, but also what they need in a way that leaves a positive impression, you’re making an investment sure to pay dividends.

“Customer experience drives growth. Data supports this fact. Forrester showed that CX leaders, on average, grow more than 5x faster than CX laggards. The companies that have made CX a priority focus on understanding the customer’s needs and wants and spend a lot of time understanding the journey a customer takes. They ensure the customer voice is heard (either through direct interviews or other opportunities to provide feedback) at each touch point of the customer journey, make sure actionable insights from feedback gets back into processes and close the loop with customers to advise them of the actions they took. They do this because they understand the post-purchase phase of the customer lifecycle is where growth occurs.” – Sue Duris, Director of Marketing and Customer Experience, M4 Communications, Inc.

Customer Experience Experts on Tracking CX Metrics

What’s the best way to improve the experiences your customers are having? Opinions differ, even among experts, but everyone agrees that what gets measured gets done.

“An organization should have many tools available to them and not lean on any one of them too heavily. They should look at a combination of CES, NPS, CSAT, loyalty, and emotions metrics. In addition, measurement shouldn’t be taken in a vacuum. Testing and analysis should occur regularly and consistently so you can view trends and then take deep dives to determine the reasons the trends are what they are. This will help you improve your CX performance.” –Sue Duris, Director of Marketing and Customer Experience, M4 Communications, Inc.

“If you want to get started with measuring and improving customer experience, I recommend you begin by tracking Net Promoter Score. You’ll get a metric that everyone in the company can rally around improving, and the rich feedback you get from customers will give you guidance on how to do it.  Over time you can build a sophisticated customer feedback strategy that incorporates a number of CX metrics, but I advise that you get the ball rolling as soon as possible. There are a number of low cost/no-cost SaaS platforms out there, including Wootric, that can get you started quickly.”  –Jessica Pfeifer, Cofounder and Chief Customer Officer, Wootric.

The Net Promoter System is the most effective way to gauge customer experience at scale. The better your customer experience, the more likely your customers will be brand enthusiasts or promoters. And the more promoters you have, the higher your Net Promoter Score will be.” – Jes Kirkwood, Content & Community Marketer at Autopilot

The social media sites that have perfected the art of public reviews are the best customer experience gauges available.  Yelp is a great example for the service industry, Capterra is a grand example for the software industry.  Monitoring those channels is a passive way to manage these gauges.  If you want quality, meaningful results, you will have to intentionally drive customer traffic to those platforms. Be brave. Invite them to be honest.” – Joe McCollum, Configio Support/SaaS Consultant

Customer Experience Experts on Retention

Sure, you can keep customers even if you provide a lackluster experience – if you’re the only game in town. But with competitors coming out of the woodwork, nobody has any market cornered for long. Offering superior CX is the only way to win the kind of loyalty that becomes the mortar paving the road to retention.

“I spend a lot of time with SaaS startup clients whose number-one goal is to improve recurring revenue. What I’m really excited about is a lot of my early stage startup clients are eager to put CX in place now so they are ready for when they scale. They know how vital CX is to corporate growth.” – Sue Duris, Director of Marketing and Customer Experience, M4 Communications, Inc.

“Customer experience is one of the two core pillars of customer retention — the thing is, you can’t grow if your customers don’t stick around. Keeping customers around is harder than ever—and delivering an unparalleled customer experience is the only way to win. Today, companies must curate a timely, relevant, and personalized customer journey, nail customer support, and take advantage of every opportunity to surprise and delight.” – Jes Kirkwood, Former Content & Community Marketer at Autopilot

Efforts toward retention should start early in the customer relationship. At Wootric, we ask our customers the Customer Effort Score question to get feedback on our onboarding process. When we don’t get top marks, we get an opportunity to make things right with the customer immediately and get back on track. All because we reached out and proactively asked for feedback early on.” –Jessica Pfeifer, Cofounder and Chief Customer Officer, Wootric.

Customer Experience Experts on Leveraging Emotion

Emotion is a vital, yet often underappreciated, component of decision-making – but CX experts know that winning minds isn’t enough. Customer Experience is a game of winning hearts.

“In my experience working in varying industries, customer trust is a byproduct of an amazing customer experience. Whether it’s helping them with a purchase or teaching them how to use software; the make or break is how they feel when they walk away from you. If they walk away with complete trust, that type of experience translates to growth.” – Joe McCollum, Configio Support/SaaS Consultant

“We’ve found that it’s often the accumulation of small annoyances that does the most damage to a customer’s perception of a brand and their loyalty as a purchaser. Frustration metrics (things like rage clicks, error clicks and form abandonment) are a great way to quickly spot and fix major things that are actively blocking customers from achieving their goals and/or contributing to an overall negative experience.” – Amy Ellis, Marketing & PR at FullStory

“As a Product Designer, I understand that even more than having a great graphic design and program, the product needs to generate an experience that connects customers emotionally with your brand/service/product. Meaningful relationships are created by strong experiences. It’s how customers become allies for the marketing team for both referrals and acquisition.” – Diego Dotta, Developer & CXO at Youper

Customer Experience Experts on The Future

CX is a quickly-evolving field as new technologies make it easier to create better experiences, track those experiences, and leverage those experiences into engines for retention and growth. What does the near future hold – and what do you need to do to stay on top of the wave?

“I believe that CX will only become more important as it gets easier for newer, more nimble companies to disrupt larger slower companies. Technology will continue to get better at helping companies quickly and easily see where they’re letting down their customers – like causing them frustration and anger, complicating their progress toward their own goals, and missing opportunities to surprise and delight.”  – Amy Ellis, Marketing & PR at FullStory

“Right now brands are inundated with CX feedback–social, surveys, support tickets–and it’s all over the place. Companies that take a systematic approach to aggregating and analyzing all of that Voice of the Customer data in one place will have a competitive advantage.  AI–in this case a combination of machine learning and natural language processing–is making it possible to glean insights from those thousands of qualitative comments.” – Jessica Pfeifer, Cofounder and Chief Customer Officer, Wootric.

“Companies will need to focus on two areas:

  1. Creating consistent omnichannel experiences that cover digital. CX tends to be fragmented which hurts customers and companies. A better approach is to create a consistent experience across channels, and companies miss the boat on digital because they have gaps in their technology. Companies should focus on setting up a strong technological foundation which encompasses the entire customer journey
  2. Investing in AI. While current AI applications include chatbots for many tasks (Facebook Messenger currently has over 100,000 chatbots), a common application is to use AI for lower level customer service tasks. At more advanced stages, AI will be invaluable to CX in predicting sales and service behaviors and in augmenting engagement, to name a few.”

      – Sue Duris, Director of Marketing and Customer Experience, M4 Communications, Inc.

“As technology continues to evolve, customer expectations will continue to rise. Delivering a hyper-targeted, personalized customer journey will become standard practice—customers won’t accept anything less. Creative marketers will find unique ways to surprise and delight, setting the bar even higher. Any companies that are already falling behind will struggle to keep up.” – Jes Kirkwood, Content & Community Marketer at Autopilot

“The challenge I have here, in a behavioral health company, is to discover and solve customer issues before they realize it themselves. I also see a need for increased availability – even offline – for when customers need emotional support, which we can do by being proactive using AI and passive data.” – Diego Dotta, Developer & CXO at Youper

A lot of companies are turning toward value-added membership campaigns. I personally feel these first round of loyalty driven offerings are based too much on the fear of losing market share, less on value added that builds and increases the trust of the consumer. The evolution of CX will force many companies that want to be successful to bite the bullet and put their money where their mouth is. The good news is, the future is bright for the consumer.” – Joe McCollum, Configio Support  / SaaS Consultant

Experts Agree: The Future is About Using Technology to Serve Customers Better

From customer success goals to metrics that measure emotion, to carefully planned and tracked customer journeys, Customer Experience reaches into every aspect of how companies relate to their customers. You can look at CX as the end result of how business decisions ultimately affect customers, or you can look at CX as the guiding light that becomes a company-wide compass for customer-facing decisions. Either way, it’s clear: To survive and grow, today’s businesses have align behind the customer experience.

Measure and improve customer experience. Sign up today for free Net Promoter Score, CSAT or Customer Effort Score feedback with InMoment.

How to Prioritize the Feedback that Actually Impacts Revenue

Are you following best practices for a closed-loop approach to customer feedback? Here's how you can prioritize your data to get the insights you really want and need.

When starting your CX journey, the immediate focus is almost always on collecting customer data. After all, how can you assess your current situation without any customer feedback? So after scavenging social channels, physical surveys, and phone surveys, you have a mountain of data in front of you. This is a definite accomplishment, but it is also the beginning of another phase of careful deliberation.

You know you need to prioritize this mountain of data in order to avoid picking up more than you can carry, but the way you categorize your customer feedback is rarely obvious. In fact, the most obvious path to take can actually get in the way of your CX program’s ultimate goal: positively impacting your revenue.

In order to help you develop an approach to your data, I will explain the obvious path many businesses follow, why it can actually harm your customer experience, and which two ways you can prioritize your data to get the results you want!

Don’t Weight Your Data

Many businesses try to summit their data mountains by weighting their data, or in other words giving data from one specific channel president over others. Though this option may seem like a good one at first, in the long run these businesses miss out on the best opportunities. Why do I say this? Because in weighting your data, you are missing out on improving other experiences. Yes, one area may excel, but one out of many is still a minority.

When it comes to customer experience, every experience matters. Each touchpoint available to your customer is an opportunity for them to interact with your brand and is therefore an extension of it. By weighting data, you are disregarding several points in your customer’s journey, risking a potential revenue loss because of a disjointed experience or a failure to deliver on a brand promise (which is essential to develop customer loyalty).

In order to avoid these difficulties, weight all data the same regardless of channel. An omnichannel perspective delivers a more thorough understanding of your customer’s needs and how you can meet them. Once you’ve done this, I suggest trying a few other prioritization methods that will bring you more success with your customers.

Do Prioritize Negative Experiences

Everybody appreciates a good compliment, so it can be tempting to reach out to satisfied customers to find out what you did right. While this can be helpful, it is ignoring your most at-risk customers. These are the customers that need the most immediate attention as 91% of unhappy customers won’t return to your brand. Because unhappy customers are a reality for any business, this means that putting off responses to unpleasant feedback is a sure way to lose customers.

When you prioritize these customers, the opposite it true. In fact, you are more likely to gain loyal customers as 70% of the time, a person will become a repeat customer when a complaint is resolved in the customer’s favor. It simply makes good CX sense to prioritize the negative experiences.

Do Prioritize by Time Cases are Created

After singling out negative experiences, I have one more way for you to narrow down your prioritization strategy: Respond to those negative experiences by the time they were created.

Think of your plan of attack like a countdown. Give yourself a time limit for how long a case can remain unresolved. This will help you to close the loop with your customers in a timely manner and to retain customers. I would suggest your goal be 48 hours and, at the very most, under a week, as 50% of consumers give a brand only one week to respond to an inquiry before they stop doing business with them. When you respond to your customers as quickly as possible, you are letting them know that they are your priority, and as we all know, the customer is king!

When it comes to approaching your customer data, it is imperative that you first develop a plan of attack. By making sure that you are weighing all your data equally and prioritizing by negative experience as well as the time cases are created, you are setting yourself up for positive revenue impact!

Are You Listening Where Your Customers Are Talking?

Learn how an omnichannel voice of customer feedback management solution can help you get the most out of your voice of the customer data, whether they want to provide feedback in-store, online, by phone, using video, social media, or just by the way they interact with your brand.

The world of customer experience is constantly evolving, especially when it comes to sources of customer feedback. Searching one single channel—or even two or three— means barely breaking the surface of the resources available to you.

Today, the best Voice of Customer programs survey multiple channels such as web, voice, video, mobile, and many more to get the deepest and most informative insights possible. Check out the graphic below to see how your listening methods can invite insights from every possible CX venue!

omnichannel voice of customer data collection

Customers want to be engaged across both physical and digital forums, so it is essential to meet those customers in both places with the tools you need to listen. By engaging your customers on all channels, you are creating seamless interactions with your brand and positive customer experiences.

With InMoment’s platform, feedback from any customer on any channel are available in just one easy-to-use interface. To schedule a demo and get actionable insights from your customer data, click here!

How to Make Unhappy Customers Your Greatest Asset

Can unhappy customers help you improve customer loyalty? Find out how to create opportunities for improved customer experience.

The ultimate goal of any CX effort is to create the experiences that in turn produce happy customers who then become enthusiastic brand advocates. However, just like any goal, this is not necessarily achievable all the time.

For any business, the reality is that from time to time there will be unhappy customers. A particular location could have an off day or maybe a customer is just in a bad mood. Regardless of the cause, negative experiences will happen. The measure of your CX strength then isn’t whether negative interactions happen or not, but how your organization responds to them.

One course of action is to simply write off the experience with a “we’ll do better next time,” but I would argue that this reaction is not enough. In fact, just leaving those unhappy customers be could have dire consequences. After all, 91% of unhappy customers won’t return to your brand.

You may not be able to go back in time and stop that negative interaction before it happens, but you can treat this unhappy customer as an opportunity. Why? Because 70% of the time, a person will become a repeat customer when their complaint is resolved in their favor.

With the right approach, an unhappy customer can actually become your best CX asset. Here are two ways that you can use a negative experience to shape CX success:

Identify Areas for Improvement

Every company has areas where they can improve, but knowing which areas to spend time and resources on can be difficult. For each industry, there are the standby areas for improvement, and across all businesses, there are standards for cleanliness, service, and product. It would be easy to just assess the most popular categories to analyze, but this can be a dangerous policy.

In many cases, the areas an organization sees as needing improvement often do not ally with their customer’s pain points. This discrepancy can cause an organization to waste resources on areas that will not make a difference. This is where unhappy customers come in. In the very act of voicing their complaint, they are identifying the areas they would most like to see improved. By assessing unhappy customer feedback enmass, you can prioritize true areas for improvement and make informed, effective business decisions.

Use the Personal Connection to Create Brand Advocates

So a customer has voiced their complaint and now you need to react. Before reaching out to the customer, it is important to acknowledge that if you go in blind, you can do more harm than good. If a customer service representative is not armed with data when they make a call, they enable the customer to re-live their negative experience and all the emotions that came with it, making the call meant to recover them an equally unpleasant experience.

It is imperative to be informed of the customer’s situation before reaching out not just to avoid this potential blow up, but also because that familiarity provides the potential for a personal connection. When a company representative knows a customer’s situation, is able to apologize, and can offer to make it up to them, a customer feels known and important. This is the most effective way to create a brand connection and even more to instill loyalty and advocacy in your customers. The negative experience then becomes a positive one, and that positive experience can do wonders for your CX reputation. On average, Americans tell an average of 9 people about good customer experiences. That means you have the potential to create nine new brand advocates by simply closing the loop with one customer.

Feedback from an unhappy customer can seem like an overwhelming negative at first glance, but when you take a second look, the potential is even greater than the initial difficulty.

Avoiding Survey Fatigue: How to Filter Your Existing Customer Data

How do you avoid customer survey fatigue but still get the insights you need to drive your CX programs? Find out how to mine more, better insights from your existing data.

We all know the age-old comparison “like looking for a needle in a haystack” and we’ve all had experiences that make that saying relevant. While searching for your car keys may feel like looking for a needle in a haystack, sorting through your customer data shouldn’t.

You spend time and resources collecting customer data in order to gain the type of insights that can guide your business decisions, but sometimes the path from point A to point B can feel unclear. When you have a multitude of data from multiple channels, insights on one specific topic can seem hard to find. In fact, the task of picking through masses of data for one specific thing can seem so tedious and daunting that you may be tempted to just send a one-off survey out to your customers on a specific topic.

While this technique may be fine every once-in-a-while, using surveys as your main data collection method puts your customers at risk of one terrible CX pitfall: survey fatigue. If their inbox is flooded with surveys every few days, your customers are more likely to be irritable and less likely to give you the valuable feedback you need.

So what do you do? Do you look for the needle in the data haystack or do you risk survey fatigue? Luckily, there is an alternative option that gets you the answers you need in a timely manner: data filtering and prioritization.

Today’s most effective CX software features tools that will allow you to sort through the data you already have to find the information you need to create premium customer experiences. Tools such as Explore™ allow you to slice-and-dice data in multiple ways for multiple insights. To give you an idea of what this looks like, I will discuss three of these filters and how they can be effective problem solvers.

1. Location

Sorting through data by location is endlessly useful. Let’s say you want to see how a new product is doing in specific regions. You simply specify the region on your platform overview and search the product. Your CX platform will automatically sort through existing data to bring up product relevant customer feedback for that area. In filtering your data by location, you have an understanding of that area so you can make decisions that make good business sense and satisfy your customers.

2. Negative Score and Sentiment

Closing the loop with customer complaints is one of the ultimate goals of customer experience. In fact, 70% of the time a person will become a repeat customer when a complaint is resolved in that customer’s favor. The benefits of solving customer complaints are obvious, but it is time-consuming to try to solve every problem as it comes in. To resolve effectively, you need a strategy. Filtering your data by negative score and sentiment can give you that strategy. Simply sort, see what customers are saying, and come up with a way to address the issue. Then you can contact customers to let them know how you are resolving the issues. You’ve saved time and your customers feel heard: It’s a definite win-win!

3. Time

Sorting data by time has two major benefits. Firstly, it allows you to spot trends over time. For instance, you can identify which products are more popular at which time of the year and make decisions to reflect that insight. Secondly, you can put out fires before they start. When you sort your data by time, you can see the feedback that has come in most recently, identify anomalies, and address them before they become a greater problem.

Filtering data not only saves you time, but it also gives you the actionable insights you need to make your customers feel heard.

The ABCs of R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Respect is one of the key building blocks in a strong relationship, be it a marriage, friendship or business. Without it, we feel undervalued and underappreciated. In a customer-brand context, this is an incredibly important concept. Customers increasingly have opportunities to express their concerns and attitudes with brands in a multitude of ways, from a traditional survey response to a simple tweet. How brands react to this changing landscape is critical. According to the Institute of Customer Service’s (ICS) European Customer Satisfaction Index, leaders, stakeholders and organisations that build and foster relationships based on respect will be best-placed to achieve sustained customer and employee engagement.

Respect is a vital part of the customer experience mix as customers want to feel valued by the brands they interact with. Simply put, a customer that is willing to trade money for goods or services deserves to be treated as more than just a number. Feeling undervalued creates a strong, emotional state that can have a marked effect on both short- and long-term spend, loyalty and advocacy.

InMoment spoke to customers globally about how they feel following a negative experience and how this impacts on future buying prospects in our 2017 CX Trends Study. The responses clearly demonstrated the need for brands to get customer service right, with one French consumer saying “I have no desire to set foot in this store again” following a negative experience. At the end of the day, a customer has a simple expectation for the brand to deliver – be it having a product in stock or good quality food. When the brand gets that wrong, customers feel let down.

The customer-employee relationship is perhaps one of the most important relationships where respect must be a key focus. The ICS’s European Customer Satisfaction Index found that customers’ top priorities are mostly related to staff attitudes and behaviours, complaint handling and product reliability. Across eight different European countries, the three key customer priorities included:

  • Staff doing what they say they will do
  • Staff competence
  • Staff understanding a customer issue

The reason why these issues are so important to customers boils down to respect – a customer trusts a brand to deliver goods or services and be knowledgeable about those goods and services. Furthermore, if a problem occurs, a customer trusts that the brand will fix it. These expectations are infinitely reasonable so when they aren’t met, customers lose respect for the brand which can lead to them never interacting with that brand again.

It is essential that brands create a culture of respect, both organisationally and in CX in particular. There are four key steps to achieving this:

  • Empower conversation
  • Let the customer tell you their story
  • Let the customer know you have heard them
  • Take action and fix the issue (and let customers know you’ve made a change)

Empower conversation

Customer feedback is a fantastic way to demonstrate to customers that brands respect them and their opinions, however many methods of obtaining that feedback can actually work against a positive relationship. For example, surveys are often far too long, and questions don’t apply to the customer’s actual experience. When a brand asks questions, they should be tailored to the extent possible using data from CRM systems and loyalty programmes – availability of technology makes bespoke surveys possible, and customers are beginning to expect that type of personalisation.

Furthermore, brands should use a variety of methods for listening to customers, so customers can provide feedback in a way that’s easy and preferable to them. In addition to traditional surveys, brands should consider using video feedback, harnessing social media and building feedback into mobile applications. Increasingly adept mobile-embedded voice assistants like Siri are making voice feedback viable and simple. The objective with feedback should be to empower authentic conversation with your customers instead of a one-way interrogation.

Letting the customer tell you their story

Surveys traditionally ask a customer to respond to a series of questions with a numerical rating scale, providing structured data which can be easily reviewed, compared and analysed. However, structured data only touches the surface of a customer’s experience. It doesn’t highlight how or why a customer felt a particular way or the details of a particular experience.

People have told stories each other since the beginning of time – storytelling is intrinsic to being human and it should be harnessed in CX. Giving customers the flexibility to talk freely about their experiences without the constraints of numbers and direct questions does two things. Firstly, it provides unstructured data which brands can analyse at a deeper level. Secondly, allowing customers to tell their story, on their own terms, demonstrates a respect for their attitudes and makes the customer feel valued.

Letting the customer know you have heard them

Giving customers the opportunity to freely and openly talk about their experiences is the first step to demonstrating respect. To truly show customers their value as a consumer, however, brands must respond to this feedback and let them know that their voice has been heard.

Firstly, brands must respond to customers in a personalised way. If a brand responds to every single piece of feedback with the exact same message, it gives the impression that the customer’s feedback isn’t truly appreciated. Automation, CRM tools and loyalty programmes make personal responses straightforward, meaning bespoke responses to feedback can be provided without impacting on a brands resources.

Additionally, transparency in response to customer complaints is essential. As previously discussed, when a customer has a bad experience, they associate negative feelings with that experience. To help turn a negative experience into a neutral, or even positive experience, brands must respond in a timely fashion – through automated prioritisation tools – and tell the customer what they will be doing to help resolve the issue. This demonstrates to customers that they are respected and valued.

Take action

Bringing customers full-circle in a journey of change is the ultimate demonstration of respect, helping foster trust and loyalty in the brand. According to the ICS, trust increases in parallel with increasing customer satisfaction levels. Much of this is due to brands making business changes on the back of customer feedback. Primark changed their staff uniforms in the past year from black shirts to blue following customer feedback that staff were difficult to find. The New York Bagel company also made the big change of ceasing all pre-slicing of their bagels after public outrage of the reduced quality in bagels when pre-sliced. Their Facebook post letting customers know they’re taking on board all feedback garnered many emotionally-charged responses to the sliced bagel debate. Whilst these are small steps in improving the customer experience, the message it communicates is significant: customers are valued and that their views are respected and listened to.

It is no surprise that brands that listen to feedback and make changes as a result do better in customer service indices. Respect, trust and loyalty are all interlinked – demonstrating to customers that they are respected will lead to greater trust in the brand and will foster brand loyalty. This will result in stronger customer satisfaction scores and an altogether better customer experience. In the UK for example, companies that rank higher on the UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) rank higher for trust with the UK average being at 78.2 out of 100 for UKCSI and 7.7 for trust in July 2017.

Get respect right, and stronger CX scores and improved business performance will follow.

Every company provides some level of customer experience, whether they create it consciously or not. The question your brand needs to be asking is: Are you investing enough in your CX initiatives? In most cases, the answer is “no.”

There are dozens of reasons why your brand should be investing in customer experience. As a matter of fact, McKinsey & Company, notes that “Optimizing the customer experience typically achieve(s) revenue growth of 5-15% and cost reductions of 15-25% in just 2-3 years.” So why do so many brands choose not to invest, or invest enough, in customer experience?

We’ll dive into four of the most common reasons why many businesses put off investing in a CX program until it’s too late.

1. “I’m not sure how to prove ROI.”

Many businesses struggle to identify the ROI of a CX program and they use that as a reason to justify forgoing CX initiatives, and it is not an illegitimate concern. The ROI of CX can be hard to establish because it is not usually a single number. Measuring the ROI of CX is possible, it just requires a different approach.

The way your company measures ROI can depend on how the program is structured and whether a specific team owns it, or whether it’s a cross-functional endeavor. Some key items that can determine ROI are things like increasing lifetime customer value, reducing customer churn, increasing employee retention or reducing operational costs.

For more information on how to hone in on the ROI of CX, you can check out our eBook, The Five Steps to an ROI-Focused CX Program.

2. “It seems expensive.”

Doing business is expensive and spending even more money on customer experience can seem like just another extraneous expense. However not taking the time or spending the money to understand your customers, however, is even more expensive. By operating without the full context of your brand’s customer experience, your organization might be focusing on improving experiences that are not important to the customers, or that might not contribute economic benefits to the company..

By putting the customer first and understanding the experience from their point of view, brands are able to identify key areas for improvement and are better able to prioritize those that will have the most financial impact. When managed properly, most CX programs will pay for themselves.

According to Jocelyn Wieser, senior retail business intelligence analyst for Cabela’s, “Through the implementation of ….technology and best practices, we’ve tripled our feedback rate, created a more customer-friendly and effective survey, responded to nearly 9,000 customer concerns, and realized almost $9 million in new revenue. In under six months, the program paid for itself many times over.”

3. “I can’t please everybody, so I won’t rock the boat.”

The reasoning behind this excuse is based on the assumption that customers as a whole are hard to please. This leads to unfortunate idea that if not everyone can be pleased, why spend the extra money and make the effort?

Contrary to this idea, our 2017 CX trends report, “The Power of Emotion and Personalization,” uncovered that—regardless of industry or country—customer expectations are reasonable. Our research found that 38% of consumers worldwide ranked “satisfied” as the number one emotion they associated with positive brand experiences. However, this number doesn’t do the actual requirements for a positive experience justice.

Contrary to popular belief, consumers are generally pretty easy to please. The opportunity is there to create positive interactions with your brand. With such reasonable expectations, your organization can’t afford to do the bare minimum—or nothing at all. There is so much more to gain from investing in a CX initiative. To ignore the obvious benefits of these is to refuse the possibility to turn customers to brand advocates.

4. “CX doesn’t appear critical.”

The impact of a negative experience can ripple through any organization and have an adverse impact on your brand’s bottom line. Studies have found that it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved customer experience. CX programs help to single out those negative experiences and close the loop with your customers, stopping the negative ripple effect in its tracks.

By using a dedicated program and advanced technology to measure the customer experience, businesses are able to realize the value of putting the customer first. Understanding that there is more to the customer story than just being satisfied or unsatisfied is the first step in creating a truly robust CX strategy that will ultimately impact business performance.

If you are considering investing in customer experience, you’re probably considering all sides of the decision. And though negative reasons (such as the ones listed above) do exist, they are more often a result of misunderstanding or a lack of information. A strategic, comprehensive CX program can clarify perspective to reveal the obvious answer: It is always beneficial for brands to spend their time and money on improving their customer’s experience.

Every second, vast amounts of information are transmitted across the globe. The number of Google searches, Facebook posts and WhatsApp messages sent in a mere 60 second time frame is truly phenomenal. Smart Insights recently revealed that approximately 3.3 million Facebook posts, 29 million WhatsApp messages and over 149,000 emails are sent every minute. In this fast paced digital environment, ‘data’ has thus gained considerable momentum and has become the lifeblood of the global information economy today. With this rise in data, data protection and privacy have become vital components of business practice. Recent cyber-attacks have further sparked an increase in these laws in over 100 countries according to Privacy International.

Data and the customer experience

The last 10 years has witnessed an upsurge in innovation, globalisation and digitalisation that has empowered people with advanced technology. This has caused a shift in global communication as more businesses move their dealings online. In fact, e-commerce has emerged a vital driver of economic growth around the world. A survey conducted by the Centre for Retail Research showed that the online retail sector is the main driver for growth in European retailing, achieving growth rates in Europe of 15.6 per cent in 2016, and expected increases in 2017 of 14.2 per cent and 13.8 per cent in 2018.

Alongside this revolution is a notable difference in customer experience (CX) strategies, and most organisations today consider it business critical. Personalisation strategies and functionality have become core components of many customer experience programmes today. Coca Cola’s ‘named’ bottles took the social media world by storm when they were first introduced. Amazon is also a prime example of a brand that provides customers with customised content and tailored messaging. Amazon’s commitment to personalisation has resulted in ownership of a whopping 16 per cent of UK’s online retail market. Suffice it to say, in order to meet the customer demands of today, businesses are collecting and analysing more and more customer data.

Importance of data protection and privacy laws

While the internet is recognised as critical for the majority of economic and social activities across the globe, policymakers are becoming increasingly aware of its ability to be a source of vulnerability. The only way citizens and consumers will have confidence in both government and businesses, is if there are strong data protection laws and regulations in place. Insufficient data protection can have long-lasting consequences as it may create negative market effects by reducing consumer confidence and overall customer experience. Today, consumer protection it is a fundamental right. Data protection is needed to protect consumers against deliberate acts of misuse or the possibility of accidental loss and misuse of data.

While there are common themes and similarities to the laws introduced by different countries, there are also variations in the levels of security, requirements, penalties and even interpretations by regulators and auditors. To effectively safeguard personal information across markets worldwide, global operating companies must understand all risks and legal responsibilities across a range of data protection laws.

Difference in global data protection laws

Among the many regions that have passed data protection regulations, the European Union (EU) has stood out for its comprehensive approach over the years. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), effective from early 2018, will impact many companies doing business globally. The law impacts any business selling goods and services in Europe specifically those that store, process or transfer any kind of personal data of EU citizens – including posts on social media, payroll processing and medical records. An organisation’s ability to transfer personal data outside of Europe is restricted under EU data protection rules. Those restrictions will remain in place under the GDPR. The regulation will revamp the way information is collected from customers and used by businesses. It is expected to cement privacy rights for 500 million EU residents and will impose substantial fines for misconduct (up to 4 per cent of annual global revenues) and a 72-hour breach notification requirement.

With Brexit around the corner, the British government has further announced that it will adopt the new GDPR while the country remains in the EU and echo it once it leaves.

Under the GDPR, Member States are given some flexibility to pass local laws and further specify the GDPR’s application. Germany, already known to have the most stringent data protection laws, is the first to do so, and more EU Member States are expected to follow soon. It is, therefore, becoming apparent that while harmonisation is the ultimate goal of the GDPR, there are still going to be some variations between member states.

In this context, the German Federal Parliament recently adopted the new German Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz – BDSG) effective from May 2018. This new law replaces the existing Federal Data Protection Act of 2003 and is intended to adapt the current German data protection law to the EU GDPR. The new BDSG intends to protect personal data from being processed and used by both federal public authorities and private bodies. It further imposes specific data processing requirements with respect to video surveillance, and consumer credit, scoring and creditworthiness. In addition to the high fines imposed by the GDPR, the BDSG imposes fines of up to EUR 50,000 for violations regarding German law exclusively. Companies will further be obliged to appoint a data protection officer (DPO).

The United States on the other hand, has over 20 sector specific or medium-specific national privacy or data security laws, with different laws functioning among its 50 states. Additionally, there are a large range of companies that are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission. However, all the states within the U.S. follow a sectoral approach to data protection legislation, where the laws of data protection and privacy rely on a combination of legislation, regulation, and self-regulation rather than government interference alone.

France, however, protects data privacy of its citizens through The Data Protection Act (DPA) of 1978 (revised in 2004) and applies to the collection of information used to identify anyone. The rules apply to anyone collecting data located in France or those carrying out activities in an establishment in France. In 2014, Google France was fined for failure to comply with this and for violation of their privacy law.

China recently introduced cyber-security legislation banning the collection and sale of a user’s personal information. Firms within the country will have to store user data on servers inside China, and people will be given the right to have their information deleted. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement that the purpose is to safeguard China’s national cyber-space sovereignty and national security rather than to restrict foreign enterprises.

Less stringent laws in Australia are governed by Australia’s Privacy Principles (APP) – a collection of 13 principles guiding the handling of personal information. Companies are required to manage personal information in an open and transparent way, having an up-to-date privacy policy about how they manage personal information.

How can companies cope with global disparities in data protection?

A recent Veritas survey of over 2,500 senior technology decision makers, noted that individuals responsible for implementing a GDPR process also face a variety of risks if data is not handled properly. The survey showed that close to 40 per cent of companies were fearful of a major compliance failing within their business, and just under one-third (31 per cent) were concerned about reputational damage from poor data policies. Given already existing variations in implementation, companies will need to focus not only on the GDPR itself, but also on national law, as they prepare their compliance efforts. Given that the UK has one of the largest economies in the world, it is undeniable that these strict laws will have an impact on global business operations.

In order to continue executing superior customer experience strategies that mirror demands of personalisation today, decision makers must be wary of the differences in data protection laws in different markets. In practice, the first step towards successful compliance will be for businesses and their respective decision makers to know where their information resides and from where it’s being accessed. For companies with different office locations, the challenge will be working out which part of the data these changes apply to and determining which information currently residing in branches will have to be centralised to a geographical location compliant with the law.

Global and local businesses alike must ensure that any form of customer data is collected and stored in compliance with different country’s data protection laws. One example of this in practice is InMoment using cloud data centres to enable the secure storing of customer data for European clients.

Furthermore, it is important that businesses allocate resources and educate themselves on the steps needed to comply with future regulations. Conducting comprehensive risk assessments in 2017 can help companies identify and fill gaps in existing data protection programmes. It is important to understand that some may need a full year to remediate, implement and test compliant procedures and policies, which may even include the purchase of new technology.

Finally, companies marketing to customers and prospects across borders must use this year to look for continued global legislation, enforcement activity and litigation regarding the interplay between telemarketing, email marketing and text message marketing and data protection laws and regulations, particularly.

When it comes to dining out, everybody has a preference. Some people are held back by dietary restrictions, some are adventurous eaters, and some are just plain picky. There is not one type of restaurant that will please everyone, and that makes dining an incredibly personal experience.

The most obvious determinant for a positive customer experience in a restaurant is the quality of food, but there are many other factors that weigh into culinary satisfaction. The majority of these concerns can be sorted into five major categories: quality of food, staff interactions, speed of service, atmosphere, and value.

In a world where 91% of unhappy customers will not return to a brand, it is crucial for restaurants to drive customer satisfaction in these areas—but how can they keep up?

That is where Voice of the Customer (VoC) technology comes in. These technologies give providers direct access to their customer feedback so they can make impactful changes in the way they do business.

Voice of the Customer solutions can be applied to restaurants in many ways, but I am going to outline four specific VoC tools that can address these five main concerns and determine positive or negative customer experience for your diners.

Real-time Alerts

Some Voice of the Customer platforms offer real-time alerts that notify staff of customer concerns as they happen, allowing them to take action almost immediately. Though these can address all five categories listed above, they can be most helpful with issues of atmosphere and quality of food.  If a customer asserts that the bathrooms in a certain location are unclean or the food is cold, the location would receive a notification of that customer’s feedback as it was made. Management could then rectify the situation, helping to ensure positive atmosphere and quality of food experiences for other customers that day.  

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics give businesses the power to forecast demand and make differences in both speed of service and staff interactions. With this VoC tool, managers can determine when there is a rush and schedule staff accordingly.  This small adjustment stops one of the biggest customer complaints—long lines and wait times—before it even starts. As an added bonus, staff members won’t be under pressure from grumpy customers, ensuring positive staff interactions for customers.

Location-Specific Insights

VoC Programs with location specific insights are most useful for identifying anomalies in quality of food. For example, if there are three cases of food poisoning in one region, businesses will be made aware of the problem before it gets out of control. This tool is also useful when testing out a new product. If one region tests it, location-specific insights can surface conclusive customer feedback on the new product.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking VoC tools give restaurants the ability to see how they match up in comparison to their competitors. This can be most useful when comparing value of their meals versus other providers. With this information, businesses can make cost-effective changes to assure customers that they are getting the best value for their dollar.

At the end of the day, all restaurateurs strive for satisfied customers, no matter what kind of food they serve. By utilizing VoC tools, businesses can make day-to-day, time-relevant adjustments that tailor to their customers’ taste and give them the best dining experience possible.  

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