The voice of the customer is a valuable resource for improving agent performance and customer satisfaction. Incorporating customer feedback into the quality monitoring process focuses the entire operation on the customer’s perspective of how the service interaction went, instead of evaluating performance based on the operation’s processes and efficiency measures.
How can contact centers incorporate customer feedback into the QM process? We turned to five industry experts for their insights.
RICHARD DUMAS
Director, Product & Solution Marketing, Five9
The voice of the customer ultimately determines whether or not the QM process works. Customer feedback can be collected during the call, as well as after the fact through customer satisfaction surveys, and should be one of the metrics against which overall performance is measured. All of this information can be stored in a single location so that, each time a call recording is accessed, all of the information associated with that call is readily available.
KRISTYN EMENECKER
Global Vice President, Enterprise Workforce Optimization, Verint
There are two factors to consider when incorporating customer feedback into the QM process. The first is the importance of recognizing how the quality management process provides an inside-out view of the customer interaction—what do we think, and how do we feel the customer interaction went? However, for a quality management program to be a success, it’s very important to also have an outside-in perspective on how the customer feels. One of the first places an organization can start is with that interaction-specific feedback. Customer-centric companies should have a solution in place that allows them to connect what the customer said with the accuracy and policy observations of the internal quality assessor. This provides a 360-degree view of the interaction.
The second piece is to not stop with an interaction view only. Think in terms of collecting and combining such data as Net Promoter Scores and general customer satisfaction surveys, etc. We want to be sure that all this information gets tied back into the process, so the quality management team can evolve and be informed based on what’s happening with its customers. Expectations in the customer engagement process are changing. What was once a very important measure may not have anything to do with customer satisfaction anymore. Challenge your organization to revisit these metrics and make sure that the data is being connected to maximize the time of both service centers and customers.
MICHAEL GREGORIO
Director, Product Management, USAN
With social media, this is the age of instant feedback. Waiting for a customer to post a review or call the call center is like rolling the dice on the company’s reputation. More often companies have no other option than to be always in reactive “damage-control” mode.
Customer feedback needs to be part of the overall company culture. I think of my own experiences with a truly “customer-centric” company culture (not one that just claims to be). They typically have a system in place to escalate any complaints to someone who could not only fix my situation, but could also assess whether it warranted further investigation. Customers want a channel through which they can be heard, but they also want to know that their issues will be resolved. And if the company passes this test, the customer will return the favor with their loyalty and even recommend others to your brand.
Creating a feedback loop with proactive survey tools and personalized interactions enables a business to receive positive praise or fix issues before the customer calls—and possibly more important, deter potential negative feedback about the customer experience. Most customers complain when they are having a truly horrible experience. But there are many more dissatisfied who don’t speak up, and these are the ones companies need to encourage to provide feedback. By doing so, the company is also likely to hear from all those customers who think that your brand is great.
SCOTT KOLMAN
Vice President, Product & Solutions Marketing, Genesys
Customer feedback should be quantified, whenever possible, and linked to the interaction that it is regarding, and then correlated against any QM-related metrics that are available for those same interactions. Customer survey scores should be correlated against QM scores for the same interaction, along with all applicable interaction metadata (such as call handle time) and interaction analytics metrics or insights about the interaction (if available) to uncover the root causes of negative (or positive) customer feedback. Customer feedback gleaned by speech analytics can then be correlated against any QM-related metrics that are available for those same interactions, whether those metrics are measured by speech analytics or by traditional QM processes.
JANICE RAPP
Senior Director of Product Marketing, inContact
Customer feedback or voice of the customer (VoC) is essential to a successful quality program. Contact centers can use this feedback during traditional quality coaching sessions. In addition, this data can be used to enhance products, improve processes and optimize center training.
To read the full Q&A with more best practices and advice for a customer-centric QM approach, download the article here.
