Customer Insights Program

The Customer Insights Program is a core component of our Customer Experience Management Framework. It is an enterprise-wide structure to systematically collect, measure and manage customer insights and to feed them back into the customer experience, either through immediate action or longer-term strategy.

The Customer Insights Program integrates what some companies the “Voice of the Customer” (VOC). However, not every insight is voiced directly by the customer. In order to find insights that matter, companies have to know where to look for them. And they need to know what to do with them. The Customer Insights Program take a holistic approach to customer insights management by collecting and measuring both formal and informal customer feedback across channels and touch points and includes:

  • Systematic and continuous customer insights gathering
  • Cross-departmental insights sharing processes and policies
  • Periodic Customer Experience measurement (at multiple-channels)
  • Key Performance Indicators (beyond the traditional Customer Satisfaction Survey)
  • Customer feedback responsibilities
  • Integration of insights into the business decision process

Introducing the Chief Customer Experience Officer

While the Customer Insights Program can be managed by a team composed of representatives of each department, it is ideally suited to a dedicated Chief Customer Experience Officer (CXO) whose responsibility is to manage the Customer Experience from a holistic perspective. As part of our Framework implementation we can help companies establish the role of the CXO.

Insights Gathering

Ongoing Feedback

Feedback is gathered on a continual and ongoing basis from various sources including Call Center, email and Service Center inquiries and complaints, front-line staff, social media, online reviews and forums, media, web site and other social media channels. Information is then shared with relevant departments for immediate or future action.

This continuous feedback can also be gathered and measured over time and be part of the your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Periodic Research

Periodically, research is conducted to understand the overall customer experience with the company and that at specific channels.  This can include:

  • Survey
  • Advanced multichannel Customer Satisfaction Survey
  • Observational research
  • “Mystery Experiences”
  • In-depth interviews
  • Focus groups

This can also include existing measurement methods your company already has in place, such as Net Promoter Score. Some of the periodic research methods are also included in the KPIs.

Insights and Feedback Management

Customer insights gathered from ongoing feedback or periodic research is processed and used to measure and design the Customer Experience.  In this way, we help you “close the loop” between measuring the customer experience and taking action to improve the experience. We believe that collecting customer feedback is only valuable if it is actionable.

Key Performance Indicators

Data from various internal and external sources are used to create KPIs that measure Customer Experience improvements over time and to set Customer Experience goals.

Immediate Action

Customer insights and feedback shared across departments allow the company to react immediately to potential customer experience issues and engage in service recovery.

For example, customer commentary in social media may be forwarded to marketing or PR to issue a formal public response and potentially resolve the issue. Issues with a product or service uncovered at the Call Center or Service center can be forwarded to the relevant department to provide an immediate solution.

Business Decision Integration

Core to the customer-centered business philosophy, immediate feedback, results of periodic research and KPIs are factored in the business strategy and are fed back into designing the Customer Experience at multiple levels, including:

  • Branding and marketing
  • Sales and servicing processes
  • Product and service design and innovation