It can be easy to drown in a sea of big data. To tackle this, CX practitioners are leaning on the latest technologies to get ahead in converting insight into action.
In some of our recent research, turning customer data into actionable insights was pinpointed as one of the largest challenges faced by CX professionals. The overwhelming, abundance of data complicates locating insight or trends specific to individual customers to boost their satisfaction.
Josh Braaten CEO of Brandish Insights, a brand measurement and consumer insights company outlined two key pain points in regards to actioning customer data:
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Consensus: Consumer metrics have not been universally codified like Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or even direct response marketing to a lesser degree. Disagreements about how to measure CX are common.
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Perspective: Many of our consumer metrics are just too granular and do not show a broad enough consumer perspective. It's not always clear what a particular CX insight says about the greater consumer journey.
Rich data and deep customer insight can be a powerful source of competitive advantage and business leaders. For some time now, analysts and CX specialists have shared an interest in addressing this critically important challenge. Charlotte Dunsterville from Sure International noted in our Feedback Report the key lies in discussing feedback across the business and taking action together.
On the topic of personalization, the Digital Manager for clothing brand – iHeartRaves which currently grosses over $20Mn a year and has been featured in the Inc. 5000 four years in a row, Brandon Chopp said: “The reason our site is successful is that we gather our marketing intelligence from understanding customer data and using it to improve our website functionality. Our team has improved the customer experience by creating customized promotions and special offers based on customer data. Since each customer is going to have their own individual preferences, personalization is key. This can have a very big impact on customer loyalty, not to mention overall sales and profitability in the long run.
“This customer data is especially useful for real-time insights which allow for real-time decision making. A great way to leverage customer data is through the use of A/B testing. If you are able to compare two versions of a webpage, you can determine which one performs better. Continuous testing and optimization ultimately lead to a better customer experience.”
How to turn data into action?
There are many data strategies that can unlock those rewards such as: asking the right questions, having a defined objective which matches the data you are gathering from project outset, placing customer data and analytics at the heart of every mainstream business decision etc. For this article, however, we wanted to focus on some of the technologies changing the game when it comes to getting ROI from actioning customer data.
What are some of the tech that are turning customer data into insights?
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Dashboards
Making data visual and relevant to the entire organization so it can be used to better your customer experience when it really matters.
At Thomas Cook, an automated dashboard is used internally by different teams, creating actionable insights that can be reacted to immediately.
Annette Höher-Bäuerle, Group Customer Experience Director, explains: “Instead of pushing it to different departments, it’s each area’s responsibility to pull from it and look at the insights. For example, if we face issues in our hotels, our hotel and quality team will pick this up. Responsibility for smaller issues and improvements lies with their respective areas.
“From a transformational point of view we use our insights in the discovery stage of various journey designs that allow us to have a much better view on what our customers think and feel. This then helps us to come up with new ideas and innovations, which can make journeys easier, seamless, effortless and personalized.”
Tech in the spotlight- InMoment provides a real-time feedback feed on focus areas with an automated tagging and correlation driver.
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AI pattern recognition
Thierry Derungs, Chief Digital Officer at BNP Paribas, highlights that his organization is unable to capture their NPS solely with surveys so they have to go down alternative routes. “That’s a huge job we’re currently working on,” he says. “With the help of artificial intelligence we’re looking to get the most from all the data that we have – because we have a lot – to take qualitative indicators that will really help support the NPS, and everything immediately after that, which will allow us to improve ourselves all the time.”
By connecting customer data across your different touchpoints into an omni-channel view, you can start predicting customer behaviors to pre-empt and solve any challenges before they occur. This approach can also be used to personalize interaction for a better overall experience.
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Text Analytics
Using the likes of machine learning, text is decoded to measure and pinpoint trends in customer opinions and sentiment to inform next best actions.
Tech in the spotlight - Convergys
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Natural Language Processing
Ed Donner, Co-Founder and CEO of untapt:“Companies are drowning in customer data without a way to derive meaning from it. Structuring information and pulling useful insights manually can take so long that by the time teams do, it is already outdated.
“That's why I believe technology like AI and Natural Language Processing will be the only ways for companies to keep their heads above water in the coming years. We have already seen great success in how these technologies can parse through data and create immediate insights without needing any manual input from us. I advise all leaders today to proactively invest in AI or they will almost certainly get left behind.”
Tech in the spotlight - Spitch
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Customer Data Platforms
A customer data platform should act as the neural center of all your CX systems, receiving data from different sources, not only digital sources but also from offline transactions and the sales funnels relating to previous orders. This intelligent connection of information can enable personalized customer management strategies to increase acquisition, loyalty levels and reduce the risk of churn.
Tech in the spotlight - Amdocs
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Graph technology
This technology outlines relationships to understand more about customers, their decisions and their influencers.
Tech in the spotlight - NetX Labs
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Chatbots
A chatbot is an interface facilitating the completion of tasks via text or audio without human assistance. In other words, it is a robot that presents itself as a human in a messaging platform. On the whole, they require minimal human input taking instructions from pre-programmed rules and, in some instances, artificial intelligence
Word of warning
When selecting tech for your toolkits as mentioned by Chris Taylor remember “Big data analytics is big business.” You should be aware of aspects such as: the data you have, what you are looking to collect, the information you want to have access to, whether in fact your business needs more advanced solutions for real-time responsiveness. Ensure when you embark on your search you are equipped with the necessary information.
Top rated Customer Experience Management platforms for 2018 according to TrustRadius
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Qualtrics
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Zendesk
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Pendo
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Oracle Service Cloud
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MindTouch
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Evergage
Do you know of a piece of tech we missed that is changing the game when it comes to getting ROI from actioning customer data? If so get in touch and let us know!