Allegiance Blog

When you combine structured data with unstructured data, such as freeform replies to open-ended survey questions or comments on the Internet, you add another layer of depth that can give you a complete picture. For example, you can see what customers are saying about a poorly performing product, why customers in a specific region for a specific type of product and for a specific time period are unhappy, and what were the key issues that drove low satisfaction.

How much impact does employee engagement have on a company’s bottom line? More than you think. A recent Gallup study estimated that disengaged employees wasted more than $300 billion in productivity at U.S. firms. The flip side: firms with engaged workforces have 2.6 times the earnings per share growth rate compared to their industry counterparts.

Businesses are turning to text analytics systems and technologies to automatically process and analyze unstructured text in all its forms and transform it to be utilized in identifying trends, early warning signs, product issues, suggestions for improvement, and cries for help from customers.

When sales and marketing professionals hear the words “customer feedback,” most tend to think of colleagues who spend their time in statistical analysis and tracking customer satisfaction scores. But as customer feedback tools give way to the more sophisticated technologies of customer intelligence (CI), we believe that many will start to use CI and its insights to drive sales and improve marketing campaign ROI.

Could your loyalty, satisfaction and engagement surveys also behave as sort of “leading indicators” that affect performance in other areas of your company? If customers are more engaged, will they buy more product? Will they recommend you? Will this have any bearing on inventory, staffing or R&D? Think about designing your VOC program with the intent that the data can trickle down to show relevance in your day-to-day operations and business outcomes.

The names we give them vary from company to company: rogue, unofficial, unsanctioned, ghost, one-off. Voice of Customer (VOC) experts appreciate the power of a neat customer feedback strategy. But in many organizations, there is no central authority governing how, when and why customers are surveyed.
When your customers are surveyed in a disjointed, illogical and inconsistent manner, both your VOC initiative and your customer relationships suffer.

Survey results that are presented as “average scores” can easily miss the mark. What does an average satisfaction score of 7.78 really mean? Presenting metrics that everyone can understand and act on is a critical component of any Customer Satisfaction / Customer Loyalty program, and it need not be very difficult.

Social media offers customer service professionals a great opportunity to leverage a new channel for customer feedback and enhanced communications. By establishing social media as a shared resource, contact center managers can identify new ways to enhance the quantity, quality and value of electronic communications.

Customer relationships are dynamic, never static. Customers’ perceptions and beliefs are continuously evolving. Each customer interaction with your company (either direct or indirect) has the power to strengthen, weaken, or destroy customer relationships. Can you afford the risk of not capturing your customers’ voices on a regular and consistent basis?

Companies steeped in listening to their customers and employees too often dismiss extending the same opportunity to their partners and resellers as unnecessary, a luxury, or even a dangerous gesture that may send to partners the wrong message about the power distribution in the relationship. But partners have a unique perspective on your organization, seeing things not as a direct employee or a customer, but as a special third-party to your organization, aligned with your company, products and services in a unique way.