Use Holistic Customer Insights to Create CX Strategy with Heart

All humans have a heart; however, people rarely think about their heart until it stops functioning as it should. Many contact center leaders will tell you that’s how they feel about the senior leadership at their company. They might feel frustrated by a lack of support and acknowledgement—until something goes wrong, that is. For example, if the company website crashes, the contact center suddenly becomes as mission critical as the I.T. department.

But CX leaders know the contact center is always crucial to the smooth operation of every service-focused organization, no matter the industry. In fact, one might say, the contact center is the heart of every organization, or at least it should be. How? By cultivating customer experience to help create an ecosystem that is in-sync with customer thoughts and emotions.

Contact centers already serve a vital function by caring for and building customer relationships while also helping them find the answers they seek. But if you think about it, the contact center can also serve an organization the same way the heart serves the body. Like oxygenated blood pumping vital information throughout the body, contact center data is rich with important information.

Your heart helps you gauge the health of your body like CX analytics help your company gauge the health of customer relationships. Otherwise, leadership might not know when a customer relationship is at risk until it’s too late.

The impact of a solid Voice of the Customer (VOC) program is vast and deep, just like the heart. These insights can help leadership identify blind spots, and the root causes of issues. VOC insights can help leaders identify where to focus attention to build digital-first strategies and drive revenue.

In fact, VOC can transform your contact center from a cost center into a revenue driver by promoting enterprise-wide action. VOC can help your company turn feedback into actionable strategies that move the needle for your brand by impacting a number of KPIs. Insights can also improve operational effectiveness, increase customer lifetime value, isolate upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and encourage personalization opportunities that drive loyalty.

CX analytics can help the company isolate issues to be addressed, problems to fix, all while tracking progress. Additionally, direct feedback from Interactive Voice Response (IVR) surveys, and other tools for tracking customer feedback, can be critical to keeping the CX pulse pumping. Leaders can uncover customer expectations, priorities, perceptions, motivations, and pain points. Insights from sentiment scores can also be used to gauge loyalty and satisfaction.

The possibilities for growth and development are endless when contact center leaders are invited to the table. However, success can only be achieved if other departments know how to effectively use the data you give them. Luckily, contact center leaders are the perfect experts to show them how.

In fact, analytics and customer feedback can and should inform the entire CX strategy from top to bottom. CX data could be used to inform innovations, drive product development, guide website updates, initiate new services, and prioritize budgets. An impact can be made by simply helping leadership understand the reasons for customer calls. Insights can include how a call was initiated, what the customer experienced (such as wait times, transfers, etc.), and everything that transpired during their agent interaction.

In addition, contact center data can inform and assist all departments throughout the organization. Including other channel experiences (such as opportunities to improve self-enabled channels, like websites or location-based channels, such as retail stores), products and services, and opportunities for better external communication—consider all the questions your teams get asked!

The contact center can deliver warning about an outage or dysfunction faster than it gets on the radar of the IT team. They may not realize customers are having issues with specific e-commerce functionality since the website is active and working. But if the volume of calls about a specific issue spikes over a short period of time, the contact center can help secure necessary attention.

The contact center can also positively impact revenue by helping the company discover untapped opportunities. You can discover what new products or services resonate with your customers, which will improve success rates. Leaders can also find gaps and openings in the industry offerings of which they can take advantage. Not to mention all the missed digital transformation and development of self-enabled experiences for customers you might be missing out on.

Is your company monitoring the *heartbeat* of the organization and letting that pulse drive budgeting, goals, priorities, new development, and growth? If yes, that’s wonderful! But, if not, that's another story.

Of course, contact center leaders will know the answer to these questions. If the data and analysis you gather never leave the contact center, the company is likely missing invaluable opportunities to drive revenue and growth. Add to that missed the prospects that could help build brand loyalty and reputation.

So, what's next? Perhaps it's time to look for new ways to help company leaders find potential for growth and revenue by properly using the information you provide them. You will likely want to ask direct questions to gauge the knowledge level before you make any suggestions (nobody wants to deal with bruised egos, right?). Then, carefully craft suggestions for how the leader can use the information you deliver to find gaps and openings.

In summary, as the CX heart of your organization, your contact center is perfectly positioned to capture crucial feedback and share valuable, actionable CX insights. This information can provide early warning about at-risk customers, shape product and service priorities to reflect customer preferences, uncover opportunities for cross-sell, and deliver real business value company wide.

However, you're the expert! You know what to do next. You know your company culture, industry, product offering, and, most importantly, customers better than anyone else. As the on-call contact center cardiologist, you must leverage the entire organization to keep the beating heart of CX pumping strong. Only then can your business build lifetime loyalty, seamless service, and long-term success.

For more ways to monitor feedback, uncover blindspots, and identify actionable insights, check out this ebook, “From Contact Center to Impact Center.”