Interaction Analytics: Deciphering Customer Service

There are many different definitions of customer loyalty. We believe this one say’s it best:

“Customer loyalty is the result of consistently positive emotional experience, physical attribute-based satisfaction and perceived value of an experience, which includes the product or services.”

Building an emotional connection with the customer is vital in a competitive landscape. Having said this, how do you find out what is keeping your customers loyal? What technique, what tactic is attracting and more importantly maintaining your most dedicated customers? Equally, what is throwing them off – why are some of your customers leaving?

The Black Hole

The answer to this is customer feedback. It is the mantra of customer service. The feedback customers provide about their experience with an organisation is pivotal to the strategy of the business.

But, for those who are unhappy and choose not to complain, this is where the ‘black hole’ of customer satisfaction begins.

According to recent statistics a typical business hears from only 4% of its dissatisfied customers. A startling percentage. What happens to the remaining 96%?

Interaction Analytics

While surveys have long provided a means to measure the sentiment of a customer base towards a particular brand/product or service, this methodology relies on customers actually providing their feedback. What happens to the rest who do not?

By addressing gaps in the methodology, Interaction Analytics provides a holistic view of the ‘voice of the customer’, crafting a timely feedback loop for decision makers to act on this intelligence and drive customer loyalty.

Interaction Analytics technology does the groundwork for you by “listening” to all forms of communication such as calls, email, text and webchat (rather than just a random sample), to spot predefined keywords and expressions that need further analysis.

Much like what Google does for the internet, a neural phonetic Interaction Analytics solution can combine speech recognition (transcribing communications into text) and phonetic indexing (looking for defined sounds and matching them to target words or phrases in a phonetic index file) into a single powerful engine, picking up on valuable business insight.

Interaction Analytics: The good, the bad and the ugly

Interaction Analytics can be used to spot keywords and expressions that can indicate problem areas or rather the ‘bad side’ of your customer service. This can include mentions of competitor names, pricing, and language typically associated with customer dissatisfaction.

Being able to search and isolate these communications allows the company to take proactive and or preventative action to remedy the situation before it repeats itself or escalates.

What’s more, if an ongoing trend is identified, Interaction Analytics can provide the ammunition to improve ineffective practices.

Similarly, Interaction Analytics can also uncover satisfied customers identifying ‘positive’ keywords and expressions, like mentions of renewals, upgrades and language typically associated with a pleased customer.

This allows to pinpoint exactly where they are doing a good job when it comes to customer service, enabling the organisation to repeat and learn from best practices. This knowledge can even be shared with the sales and marketing teams who can use it to further enhance the company’s proposition.

With 100% of communications being monitored across 100% of touchpoints, the most successful behaviours that drive exceptional customer service and those which drive unsuccessful customer service can be isolated and shared across agent groups.

Interaction Analytics can also ensure the training and coaching received by new agents is more targeted, using real-life examples of the best and worst practices to consider, fast-tracking agents to a level of proficiency that will reduce attrition and ultimately improve customer satisfaction.

Interdepartmental Knowledge

Interaction Analytics can also provide valuable insight into the knowledge hiding within other departments, which can be used to further drive customer satisfaction.

Valuable customer and organisational insight can travel well beyond those on the frontline, extending towards departments such as marketing, sales and billing who play a strong role in your customer’s journey.

For example, tracking customer comments and conclusions after a large marketing campaign has gone out, can identify if messages were misinterpreted. If this is the case, this can be addressed quickly and efficiently before the contact centre becomes swamped with calls about that particular issue.

Final Thoughts

Getting to the root cause of why your customers are leaving or in fact staying is essential in today’s customer centric world.

Finding out about what happens to the 96% of customers who do not complain or give feedback is vital for the development and maintenance of any organisation.

With research telling us that by 2020 customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator, can organisations really afford to ignore the writing on the wall?

Find out more by visiting: bslgroup.com