CX
Dec 19, 2023
Innovations like generative AI are turning customer service more qualified and effective in 2024. Yet, customers are more demanding than ever. Adopting voice of the customer (VoC) best practices is more important than ever to fully understand how customers feel and remain competitive in an innovative market.
Table of Contents
What are voice of customer best practices?
Voice of the customer best practices are established approaches, tools, and strategies used to capture and analyze customer data, fostering brand loyalty and enhancing overall customer experience (CX).
When combined, these procedures operationalize a voice of the customer program – a systematic process of collecting and interpreting customer insights, including sentiments, expectations, and preferences related to interactions with a company. It's a pillar method of a customer-centric strategy, processing feedback across various channels, from online chat to support by phone.
Business leaders implement VoC best practices by incorporating Conversation Intelligence (CI) platforms, such as Echo AI, into their programs. These solutions enable organizations to stay responsive to customer behaviors quickly, with more accuracy and in a cost-effective way.
VoC best practices: 9 game-changing insights
Are you ready to identify opportunities and issues in real-time and make better data-driven decisions? To drive long-term customer success in your business, follow these 9 VoC best practices in 2024:
1. Outline clear objectives
The foundation of an effective voice of the Customer strategy lies in defining clear and measurable goals.
Let's consider an e-commerce platform that aims to develop its customer experience through a detailed VoC program. In this case, their objectives might include reducing customer churn and increasing overall satisfaction among its clients. To measure goals like these, you must identify specific key performance indicators (KPIs) — such as the percentage of conversations where a customer is likely to churn — and make sure the insights found are aligned with your business objectives. Find out which contact center metrics you should track.
2. Offer an omnichannel experience
Effective VoC programs use an omnichannel approach to integrate channels, ensuring high-quality service at every touchpoint of the customer journey.
A report by Adobe shows that 70% of customers consider it very important for an organization to deliver a unified, seamless experience at any point of interaction. This way, customers can initiate an inquiry on social media and continue the conversation via chat. Omnichannel capture not only keeps all essential information accessible to the customer success team but also allows them to easily find high-priority queries.
3. Capture real-time feedback
By 2024, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation will be on top of the business investment agendas for streamlining service operations, as noted by Deloitte. These technologies play a decisive role in collecting customer feedback in real-time, automatically processing large amounts of information quickly and accurately.
Successful voice of customer programs set up a system for ongoing monitoring and analysis of their needs and sentiments. It helps your team deal with concerns quickly, consistently increasing overall customer satisfaction. With Echo AI, you upgrade contact center performance by centralizing conversations from multiple sources in one place. Your customer data becomes accessible in real-time by everyone – from leaders to the frontlines. Discover why generative AI is crucial for the success of your contact center.
4.Certify anonymity and confidentiality
Assuring that customer feedback remains confidential and anonymous — one of the top CX best practices — promotes trust and fosters loyalty between clients and companies. According to a report by Euromonitor, customers increasingly value trust and confidence when sharing personal data.
Create a safer environment for your customers with:
Secure online platforms: Prioritize safe communication channels, such as encrypted messaging platforms.
PII redaction: Address customer concerns without exposing personal information.
Confidentiality agreements: Ensure that every team member dealing with customer data agrees to and follows confidentiality terms.
Data encryption: Use encrypted databases and secure servers to store information securely.
5. Prioritize and segment feedback
By categorizing conversations based on priorities and segments, your team gains the ability to focus on critical areas for development and address specific customer needs.
Echo AI, for example, analyzes conversations offering a complete overview of your interactions, categorized by different tags. For instance, your team can rapidly filter queries automatically segmented as "negative sentiment" and concentrate on the critical priorities of the day. This practice, aligned with factors such as personalization and convenience, positively impacts customer retention, allowing long-term relationships with customers. Find other key practices of quality assurance in our blog.
6. Engage and train employees
To excel in your VoC program, you’ll need a well-trained and engaged customer success team to analyze data and actively participate in the feedback process.
NTT Data reveals that 96% of respondents from organizations with CX practices agree that customer experience and employee experience (EX) must be closely aligned to maximize their impact on business growth. Educational initiatives for your business may include VoC workshops with experts, case study analysis, and VoC tools or platform training. Discover what performance coaching is and why your CX team could use it.
7. Use predictive analytics
Why not anticipate future customer needs, preferences, and behavior if you can? Based on historical data, AI forecasts future customer trends and issues. Predictive analytics allows your team to adjust their strategies, keeping pace with the ever-changing expectations of customers.
By using predictive analytics, it's possible to:
Anticipate feedback: Recognize patterns and identify potential issues, being proactive.
Predict churn: Find customers showing signs of possible churn.
Detect high-risk customers: Be aware of behaviors such as nonpayment or fraud.
Recommend content: Suggest options based on previous actions or interests.
Personalize customer support: Apply messages tailored to customers' needs, improving engagement and retention.
8. Benchmark against competitors
9. Adopt voice of customer tools
By 2025, 60% of organizations with voice of the customer programs will supplement traditional surveys by analyzing text and voice interactions with customers, according to Gartner. With VoC tools and Conversational Intelligence platforms such as Echo AI, you increase customer service teams' productivity and effectiveness.
Here's how:
Find insights hidden in every conversation: With AI, you automatically transcribe and analyze your calls, chats, emails, or any other support channel and identify new business opportunities, trends, and risks in real-time.
Have 100% visibility into your customer conversations: The omnichannel approach allows your team to monitor all the conversations and quickly identify priorities, providing an instant understanding of what your customers are saying.
Complete QA coverage: You'll make better data-driven decisions and protect your business against vulnerability by instantly detecting potential fraud attempts and compliance breaches.
Elevate your team performance: Personalized team coaching and guidance enhances strategic planning and contributes to agile operations.
Follow VoC best practices with Echo AI
With Echo AI's AI-native Conversation Intelligence platform, implementing the voice of the customer best practices becomes effortless. Our platform automatically captures, transcribes, tags, and categorizes every customer conversation across various channels in real-time. These features provide a comprehensive understanding of customer interactions and sentiments, amplifying the effectiveness of your customer VoC program.
Echo AI transcription features
Additionally, attributes like omnichannel capture, AI-driven analysis, and integration with other tools collectively work to boost your VoC program's efficiency, by automating tasks, reducing mistakes, and allowing your team to focus on high-priority queries.
Keep in mind that adopting best practices for analyzing VoC data with Echo AI is not just about hearing the customer's voice. It's about leading the way in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and business success. Integrate these practices into your strategy and let us be your partner in delivering exceptional customer experiences in 2024 and beyond.
