What is the main differentiator between businesses that succeed and those that don’t ? Successful businesses and organisations listen to their customers and understand their challenges. They know that metrics like revenue and churn are just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, a study by Gartner states that nearly 89 percent of companies are competing on customer experience alone.
These organisations know the importance of understanding their customer’s perspective and collect feedback at various touch points along the customer journey to visualise the gap between customer expectation and the actual experience.
How do they do this at scale? By implementing Voice of Customer (VoC) programs through VoC platforms. Today’s AI driven enterprise VoC platforms not only capture omni channel feedback, but also provide real time insights that allow you to not only design and implement CX strategies that drive organisational level customer centricity, but also allow for quick actions and service recovery.
What is a VoC platform?
An enterprise VoC platform is an integrated solution that captures, stores and analyses direct, indirect and inferred customer sentiment, intent and feedback and provides a holistic view of the customer experience, and provides invaluable insights.
VoC platforms also provide businesses with the ability to track customer trends over time. This insight can be used to improve customer experience, identify areas of improvement, and develop new products and services.
As you understand the necessity of a Voice of Customer platform for your business, how do you select the right VoC platform?
Features to consider when selecting a VoC platform
Given the number of choices in the market, choosing a VoC platform that’s right for your business can be quite a task. Here, we’ve put together things that you should take into consideration and questions you should ask before investing in a VoC platform.
1. Internal considerations
a. How far along is your company in terms of VOC? Have you conducted programs before and how did you use the data and insights? Is your team ready to get on this customer first transformation? If not, you need to get them on board before you invest in a VoC platform
b. What are the business objectives behind implementing the VoC program? Based on program objectives and size of company, you can go for one of the following
- Enterprise VoC software: Enterprise VoC software provides a 360-degree view of the customer. These platforms support multi-channel feedback and enable the user to collect feedback across multiple channels and third party data integrations.
- SMB VoC tools: SMB VoC tools are similar to enterprise VoC tools. The major difference is that they are less complex, and tend to focus more on the aspect of feedback collection. SMB VoC tools are typically self-service, and it is more difficult to report on complex datasets and a large user base. They also face issues in terms of scalability
- Website VoC tools: as the name suggests, website VoC tools concentrate on collection data and feedback on website journeys and behaviours. They focus on providing insights on visitor behaviours and how to optimise pages and funnels.
c. Technical limitations (IT restrictions and limitations when it comes to subjects like privacy, customer data, CRM integrations, data storage/hosting, etc)
d. Size of company and growth plans: Scalability is a very important feature for all good VoC platforms, and this is where enterprise VoC solutions excel.
2. Features
a. Collection
A VoC platform should have an omni channel, multi touchpoint feedback collection mechanism to reach your customers across touchpoints in their journey via their preferred channels. Knowing the feedback type helps you understand whether the VoC platform offers only score/ rank based feedback collection or it also collects open ended customer verbatim.
b. Usability
Usability is a key element in any successful business. Look for a VoC platform that makes it easy to use and understand by both customers as well employees, because if they can’t get their work done then the company might suffer from lack of productivity or growth due to lower than expected profits!
c. Analytics
With detailed analytics, you can see how customers respond to different aspects of your company’s services. This will allow for better decisions and feedback on what needs improvement or change in order to improve their experience!
d. Integration
The integration of your company’s systems and tools with the customer data platform is an important first step in implementing a successful digital strategy.
e. Security
Once you’re confident in the security of the VoC platform and its ability to protect customer data, it’s time for an audit.
f. Scalability
The most important thing to look for in a VoC platform is scalability. You need one that can easily grow your business, so you don’t find yourself stuck on an outdated system or turned off by difficulty of use as things get more popular than expected.
g. Support
Make sure the platform provides reliable customer support to help you with any issues or questions.
Here’s some guidelines to use a VoC platform to its fullest potential
- Utilise Automation: Automation can help you streamline the process of collecting customer feedback and analysing the data. Automation can help save time and resources, allowing you to focus on other aspects of the business.
- Integrate Multiple Channels: A VoC platform should be able to integrate with multiple channels such as surveys, emails, social media, and more. This will help you gain a more comprehensive view of customer feedback.
- Personalise Interactions: Personalising interactions with customers is key to providing a great customer experience. A VoC platform should allow you to track customer data and personalise interactions with them.
- Gather Comprehensive Data: Gather comprehensive data to understand customer needs and expectations. This data can be used to make better decisions and improve customer service.
- Use Artificial Intelligence: Leverage artificial intelligence to analyse customer feedback and uncover valuable insights. AI can help you better understand customer sentiment and identify key trends.
- Track and Measure Results: Track and measure the results of your VoC efforts to understand what’s working and what needs improvement. This will help you optimise your VoC strategy and make better decisions.
We at Resonate have a very distinctive approach to VoC platforms. And it progresses from creating a relationship to responding to a customer’s needs before interacting with companies.
Read more about Resonate Voice of the Customer methodology.
Summary
To craft the best experiences, you must know what your customers want and how they will react to changes to their experience with your business. By capturing, analysing and reporting customer experiences a Voice of the Customer program empowers brands to meet as well as exceed expectations. With a profound VoC program in place, you can gather actionable insights into your customer experience in real-time.
Also remember, when selecting a VoC platform, it is important to take into consideration the needs and preferences of your team. Investing in the right VoC platform for your business can help improve collaboration within the organisation, boost engagement with customers and increase employee productivity. Ultimately, this leads to more efficient processes and better customer service. With careful consideration, you can find the best VoC platform to meet your needs in the long run.
