How to avoid data waste

Many companies collect vast amounts of data. Most of the time, it gets sent to the company’s headquarters and gets collected in the Data Warehouse, and that’s it. Sometimes some will be pulled together to release ‘vanity metrics’ like the number of social media likes or feedback scores. But usually, that’s where all the data stays. Often, separate ERP, MRP, CRM, marketing automation, web analytics, call center platforms, and other systems will even hold data separately.

Very occasionally, someone in an executive team might decide to extract some and spend a lot of time and resources in the analysis of the information and in the ideation of actions that the company can take. However, when the company makes the decision, the data is already too old. This isn’t an over-dramatic exaggeration. Research shows that up to 73% of company data is never used in any kind of analysis. A massive proportion of this is customer data, which is created and then left untouched.

Voice of the Customer (VoC) campaigns are a classic example where more data is seen as better. By their nature, most organizations are multi-channel, so it’s necessary to collect data from across the web, contact centers, and more. Is it true that the more data you have, the better your decisions will be? This is half right- yes, it’s great to have more data to work with, but the critical issue is being able to use it.

Voice of the customer is the process of listening to customer feedback and other social mentions as well as incoming calls and emails from customers about their experience using a product or service. It includes their expectations, preferences, aversions, and overall satisfaction. It typically consists of both qualitative and quantitative data.

Voice of the customer optimization (VoCO) is the process of listening to customer feedback, sharing the results within an organization, interpreting feedback for themes, and leveraging it to develop and implement appropriate action plans to facilitate organizational improvement.

VoC makes you aware of what your customers want and how they feel, while VoCO completes the loop by giving your customers what they want and turning them into loyal customers- it’s action-oriented.

A true VoCO program then needs to consider how timely your reaction is and if the way you collect and act on data is good enough.

The upside of VoCO is enormous:

• It costs businesses 5x-25x more money to acquire a new customer than to keep existing customers happy
• Highly engaged customers buy 90% more often and spend 60% more per transaction
• Companies who prioritize the customer experience generate 60% higher profits than those that don’t
• 80% of companies think they deliver superior customer service, but only 8% of customers believe they experience superior customer service
• 43% of customers don’t leave feedback because they believe the businesses don’t care

This has been a problem for a long time, and there are two sides to it. The first is with the old unused data you have. In 2014, Elena Klau wrote about the problems of what she called “Dark Data” and illustrated it with a much-copied story: a loyal customer to a soap brand sees an online ad for her favorite product. She has always associated the soap with a refined scent and eco-friendliness, but instead, she sees a childish dancing bear. Later that day, she looks for the soap in a store and sees that the packaging is now bright pink and brown and has the bear on it. Suddenly she goes from being a brand loyalist to a brand detractor. A repackaging strategy was executed without a complete picture of all the customers. It forgot the unused data about loyal, quiet buyers.

The second is with current data. According to J.D. Power, 67% of consumers have reached out to companies on social media to manage complaints, with 14% of Tweets to major retail brands coming from customers experiencing problems in-store. Yet Twitter claims, “Leading B2C companies are responding to about 60% of Tweets directed at their service accounts.” This means a lot of consumers must have unresolved issues and must interact with social media to get nothing in return. Are these likely to be loyal customers?

The second problem is dealt with the same way as the first. Companies must use insights from the customer as soon as possible. Of course, you still need to monitor long term trends and developments and be aware of other issues that affect feedback. But by tracking and reporting on feedback and social media activity as soon as possible, you maximize the use of the data you’re producing. Your databases alone are not an asset- it’s the information held on them which you need to use. 

Companies cannot afford to prevent their teams from understanding how they are performing and how they can improve. Applying customer feedback in companies can have a genuinely transformative effect on organizations.

Engage with customers: VoC gives you opportunities to engage with your customers about your brand. For example, a customer might have tweeted about how much they loved your product, or they might have reached out to you on social media for a customer service request.

Manage crises: Engagement is good, but only when it comes with positive social sentiment.

Listening to the voice of the customer allows you to track that sentiment in close to real-time. That way, you can see what activities are doing well for your brand, and which ones aren’t. If sentiment is down, review the feedback for lessons that could prevent a similar misstep in the future.

Track competitors: You also want to know what customers are saying about your competitors. This gives you essential insights into where you fit in the marketplace, how your social and feedback performance measures against your competitors is a critical way of figuring this out.

Market analysis: You will also learn what your competitors are up to in real-time. Are they launching new products? Are they developing new marketing campaigns? Social listening allows you to find out about these new opportunities and threats as they happen, so you can plan and respond accordingly.

Find pain points: this can be the most valuable way of making listening pay and heading off future issues. Monitoring conversations around the industry uncovers what’s working and what’s not working for your customer. You’ll learn about frustrations with your current products. Can you make small alterations that could help address the concerns? If you do, be sure to tell people about it with a targeted marketing campaign.

There’s no point in gathering thousands of online statements, comments, and mentions if you don’t gain precise information. We live in times when, fortunately, not only vanity metrics matter! It’s not just about how many followers, likes, shares you get, but who are the people standing behind those clicks. When you start this, it’s easy to get lost in the vast range of possibilities available to you. 

All data is measurable, but it has no value if you don’t test out new concepts and solutions.

Develop goals centered on improving your CX and then begin crafting actionable items to achieve those goals. The only way to measure success is by taking steps toward it.

Action is the best way to stop wasting your data. Therefore, you need to create a successful customer feedback process. 

• Turn the feedback into actions
  • Identify the aspects of your business you need to change or optimize
  • The bottom line is: do something
• Track down your actions and reassess the game plan 
  • Keep on listening to your customers and make changes 
  • Remember that collecting and managing customer feedback is a continuous process. There are always insights, as long as you are willing to listen 
• Sharing is caring 
  • Feedback is useful to all members of your company. Part of an effective VoC program in any size organization is enabling maximum access to the data internally and making it clear how VoC enables revenue and bottom-line profitability.

Your customers want to know that you are listening. Use their feedback to make visible improvements -even to the VoC program itself- and they will become advocates for your business.

VoCO is a new area but one that could save millions in the long run.