Operationalizing voice of the customer (VoC) feedback data in real-time is essential for organizations aiming to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, along with overall business performance.
Real-time VoC feedback gives companies a unified view of their customer data, enabling them to identify and address issues promptly, enhance customer relationships, and drive strategic decisions.
An Aberdeen study found that firms with unified customer views enjoyed 5.7x greater year-over-year increase in annual company revenue (13.6% vs. 2.4%) and a 2.2X greater YOY increase in cross-sell and upsell revenue.
When your firm can provide a unified customer profile and leverage it by frontline employees doing your customer support or sales, it becomes a powerful tool for revenue generation.
However, much work remains to be done, because that same study found that only 36% of companies have capabilities that allow them a unified view of customer insights.
This article outlines the benefits of operationalizing VoC data for frontline employees, solutions to get to a unified view of customer data, and the impacts for your company's bottom line.
Benefits to Operationalizing VoC Feedback Data for Frontline Employees
Connecting feedback to the business in real-time enables frontline employees to understand what's going right or wrong at specific moments in the customer journey.
For example, it is easier to identify a lack of agent knowledge or responsiveness if feedback is provided immediately after a case is closed rather than days or weeks later as part of a high-level aggregated review of feedback data.
Analyzing feedback in real-time enables organizations to identify trends and anomalies quickly.
Operationalizing VoC feedback in real-time means that a business can identify exactly how customers feel along their journey and take action to make each step a more positive experience, thus improving overall CX.
Collection, Connection, Clarity: Your Model to Leverage Real-Time VoC Data
To integrate feedback into the organization requires companies to focus on how they collect feedback, connect it to the business, and gain clarity about customer needs.
Collect timely feedback
To gather timely feedback, companies should identify key moments in the customer journey and the channels where interactions occur.
Although email surveys remain essential, expanding to other channels, such as SMS and social media, can boost engagement. Websites and mobile apps are also vital for feedback collection, enabling the capture of VoC data at higher rates and with greater immediacy than traditional methods.
Connect feedback to the business
It is crucial to connect feedback from surveys and digital channels back to the organization.
That process used to be done with manual exports and uploads. Today's mature CX programs integrate their CX platform directly with their business systems that include CRM, contact center, and case management platforms—allowing feedback to be shared with frontline employees in real-time.
Best-in-class CX programs use integrations to automate action and close the loop with their customers. A good example would be to use this type of automation to trigger a survey after a customer interaction or to open a ticket based on a survey response.
Gain feedback clarity—i.e., insight
Feedback can help drive a business forward, but only with clear insight into what feedback reveals and what the next step should be.
Open text answers are often a gold mine of true insight into what customers need and want. Advances in AI technology have made it easier to analyze open text responses to find themes and generate clear insight into what companies should dig deep on or where to focus.
Business Impacts of Operationalizing VoC Data for Frontline Employees
Real-time access to customer feedback allows you to respond to customers faster and on an individual level.
If you're able to continue to look at the macro trends that you need to improve on in order to improve the business... that's great. But real-time access eliminates concerns about the timing of customer interactions, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
The impact on the business and on customer loyalty is that people are going to feel valued and heard, and that's going to drive more positive interactions at an individual customer level. That gives you the space and time to address the macro trends that come through in your feedback data.
Real-time access to customer feedback also results in:
- Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty: Empowering frontline employees with actionable VoC insights enables them to address customer needs and pain points promptly, fostering stronger relationships and increasing retention.
- Increased operational efficiency: By providing real-time, data-driven guidance, employees can resolve issues faster, reduce escalations, and streamline service delivery, leading to cost savings and better resource allocation.
- Enhanced revenue growth: Equipping employees with VoC data helps identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities, personalize interactions, and improve overall service quality, driving higher customer lifetime value and boosting revenue.
The Time for Operationalizing Your VoC Data Is Now
To successfully operationalize VoC data, CX professionals need a platform that can collect customer feedback from almost any channel, connect that data to your systems of record, and glean insights from the feedback data.
Then, your frontline teams can use VoC data to inform their support and sales conversations, leading directly to more revenue and upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
The benefits are clear and the path forward is obvious.
More Resources on Voice of the Customer
Why VoC and CX Can't Be One Size Fits All
Grow the Bottom Line With Voice of the Customer Research
The Road to Stellar Customer Experience Is Lined With Engaged Employees
Voice of the Customer: Trick or Treat for Your Product Launch?
