10 best practices in VOC programs: from data to insight | Izo
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10 best practices in VOC programs: from data to insight

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The VOC programs have undergone a radical transformation, from a "I ask you, when I want and how I want", to the current "I listen to you, whenever you want and how you want".

The KPI of these programs is no longer stored KPIs (data) of our customers or get enough sample of the increasingly numerous interactions in which our journeys are fragmented. The focus today is on capturing actionable Insights and relevant Experiences, which allow companies to iterate their value proposal, their solutions and their interactions, from the contextualization and understanding of the needs, emotions and behaviors of the clients.

These are some of the main trends that we observe in the VOC programs of the leading companies in Customer Experience:

1.- Real Time Feedback.- Remember the controversial Nosedive chapter of Black Mirror? Without reaching that extreme, we do observe a rapid popularization of feedback in real time. In the immediate future, we will tend to give feedback digitally, very simply and quickly (one click), and several times a day ... of different interactions we have with companies and multimedia (image, video, emoticons, etc.)

2.- AI applied to VoC.- With all the information generated by connected devices, chatbots, etc. There will come a time when, in order to know the voice of the client, there will be no need to ask. We will know what the consumer of a company thinks about the analysis of the information that is already available (social networks, speech analytics to analyze what is said in the call center, emotional learning chatbot, etc ...).

3.- Event Driven Feedback.- This is the classic transactional feedback, but linked to events and which aims to obtain specific information of that interaction, very focused on the action. For this we have tools such as Glassbox, technological partner of IZO, which allows to track journeys, not interactions, and understand why the client behaves a certain way in our digital channels. You can see this tool in action in this webinar.

4.- Predictive Models.- The information of the feedback should enrich the analysis of the of the clients’ behaviors, being able to develop more advanced predictive models. For this, the context must be integrated into the VOC capture and incorporate crowdsourding dynamics to the data to achieve greater and better connections between information sources, internal or external, structured and unstructured.

5.- Beyond Closing the Loop.- Beyond making a call to "close the loop" in negative feedback, we must understand the VoC program as a conversation strategy and part of the relationship model with the client. In this way, depending on the feedback, certain campaigns should be activated ... which can be CTL (Close the Loop) or branding, cross-selling, member get member, Customer Care, etc ... For example, if a client indicates that their goal is X, or you are dissatisfied with X, Y, Z of the company, we can at the end of the survey offer you tips or guidelines to achieve your goal more quickly, or minimize the impact of X, Y and Z.

A common practice of companies is to invite promoters to share their valuation in social networks. But if we analyze this request from the prism of human relations, it would be as if your partner asked you if you are happy with it, and when answering yes, I asked you to say it on Twitter. People do not want to share on Twitter that they are happy with their bank, or with their telco ... they want to share stories, share their happiness and gratitude, moments of celebration, etc. How different would it be if my bank sent me this message!: "Today Fulanito García (your manager) celebrates 10 years in Ibercaja / has received the highest score in advising his clients. Do you want to join in the congratulations? (send a message on Twitter)."

6.- Custom dashboards.- The reports that are distributed in a uniform way no longer make sense, making the same information reach all the audiences. Each "Person" of the organization should have its own Scorecard or "View" with the relevant information of what the clients say, about what is their responsibility or helps them achieve their objectives, including the frontline employees, who should have their own personal dashboard.

7.- VoC and Personas. The VoC interactions can help us to characterize the customer base (CRM) based on the emotional segmentation (Buyer Person) that we have defined, thus bringing this tool so useful to understand the customer and personalize the experiences, one to one.

8.- Endomarketing of data.- The VoC programs have evolved from the so-called data era, in which the objective was to consolidate the feedback in real time and then deposit them in a "portal", available for a small number of decision makers. Then we went through a second phase in which the objective was to distribute this information in real time through the hierarchies of an organization via an "instrumental dashboard". The distribution of data throughout the organizational chart of the companies was a great step forward for the VoC management, but it failed in a critical aspect ... It presupposes that all the people of a hierarchical level show a uniform and high level of interest to read and understand what we are sending But, it's not like that. Now we are entering a third phase, the Storytelling era, in which the objective is to collect information and deliver it in a way that captures the attention and stimulates the analysis, creativity and innovation of our teams. This involves working on Data visualization and new multimedia narratives to facilitate the assimilation of insights.

9.- Action Driven VOC. Act in real time information, and apply it to internal training, commercial tools (manuals, technical sheets, processes, etc), marketing, R & D, the iteration of new products and services, etc. Inditex and ING are two formidable examples of this immediate reaction to unstructured (unsolicited) feedback. In the first case, they have photograph corners in the central (next to the Customer Service Department), so that if a client makes an observation or asks about a garment in his ecommerce or through any other channel, the company does immediately a new photo of the look to upload it to the store. In the case of ING Empresas, an entrepreneur who had opened a small store a few days ago, asked via web where he could buy the rolls of paper for the POS, because they had run out and he had heard that ING answered the customer's queries, although they are not of their financial products. But ING did not respond to his inquiry. 24 hours later, the small business received a box of rolls with a list of prices and establishments in their premises. The story, of course, ran among the neighborhood merchants. And, as you can see, VoC, Marketing and Customer Care are increasingly difficult to separate. These types of queries are critical when redesigning the Customer Experience, since it allows us to offer a multitude of details in a productive manner, with just requiring investment, we know that they will appreciate and value. In this case, the customers who open a business for the first time.

10.- Contextual VOC. The context converts the data into insight. That is why the next Dashboard will offer contextualized information and will focus on the interpretation of information: Customer Journeys Dashboards, VOC crosschannel, background or emotional markers of listenings, pre-interaction reporting and focus on emotional dialogue with the client (job to be done, etc).

As you can see, most of these trends are not focused on technology, but on people and the Governor, and this reality is being contrasted in our Trends Workshops with companies of very different sectors and sizes.

The growing fatigue and rejection of the client towards the surveys does not have to do with the number of questions or with the frequency of the questionnaires, but with emotional elements and social norms. Establishing an emotional dialogue with clients involves understanding how we do not give feedback to human beings, and knowing how to bring those dynamics to companies, avoiding the artificiality and lack of empathy that characterizes our listening programs today.

Only by working on the internal culture and the emotional dimension of the VOC programs we will be able to avoid 95% of the feedback being thrown away (Gartner, 2009). And yes, technology will be important, but as a means, never as an end. After all, the feedback experiences that we have enjoyed the most as clients, we remember them for the originality and humanity of the questions, the success of the moment and the reaction (not response) of their employees.

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