How Customer Engagement Analytics Can Improve the Customer Experience

Think about a memorable experience you’ve recently had with a company.  What, in particular, stood out to you?  Maybe you had an issue with the company’s product or service offering and had your concern addressed by the organization in a prompt and efficient manner.  Maybe the customer service representative you spoke to over the phone (or emailed or interacted with on social media, etc.) made the experience so noteworthy that you rushed out to tell all of your family and friends about it.

Let’s get real: These rose-colored scenarios don’t always end up being the case.  Research, in fact, shows the majority of organizations fail to prioritize the customer experience.  Seventy-four percent of contact center leaders surveyed by ICMI admit to preventing their front line from providing the best possible customer service, and 42% do not investigate the root cause of repeat customer contacts.

So what are some ways companies can optimize customer interactions throughout the enterprise and provide customers with exceptional experiences?

Let’s take a look at customer engagement analytics and explore the ways in which it can improve the customer experience: Drive Cross-Channel Customer Engagement

Today’s customers are everywhere – social media, mobile, email, live chat, phone, etc. – and they expect to be able to reach companies anywhere, at any time, and on the channels they prefer to use.

What this means for contact centers is there’s an imperative to develop a presence across various communications channels.  It’s more important than ever for organizations to develop multi-channel customer support strategies that will allow them to communicate with customers via their preferred channels.

Proactive companies looking to remain competitive in this multi-channel world will find ways to leverage analytics to drive cross-channel customer engagement.  “[Such] platforms aim to understand the complete voice of the customer, incorporating social media analytics, survey tools, and centralized reporting where businesses can view interactions across all channels in one place,” according to an Ovum white paper.

Derive Insights from Root Call Analysis

With the proliferation of digital communications channels comes the opportunity for contact centers to capture and leverage new sources of insights to influence the customer experience.

The question then becomes: How can these organizations effectively use such insights?

In addition to considering the questions and concerns customers are expressing via various communications channels, contact centers must also factor in the reasoning behind the questions.  Customer engagement analytics might, for example, uncover the reasons customer calls are being bounced from agent to agent (escalation attempts, insufficient agent training, etc.).

Such root-call analysis can then allow companies to categorize each type of call, leading to agent training opportunities and, as a result, improved customer experiences.

Understand the Customer Journey

When all is said and done, the customer experience comes down to not multiple, disparate points of interaction but the collection of those interactions overall.  In other words, companies must be able to understand the customer journey, regardless of the communications channel used, and seamlessly integrate those interactions into a complete picture.

By aggregating customer interactions, transactions, feedback, and agent data, customer engagement analytics works to provide an end-to-end picture of the customer journey.  Armed with these actionable insights, contact centers can both engage customers and provide an improved experience overall.

Final Thoughts

Today’s multi-channel digital world demands that companies take a proactive approach to engaging customers across the channels they prefer to use.  It’s no longer just a best practice – it’s essential to remaining competitive in an increasingly customer-centric marketplace.

With customer engagement analytics in place, contact centers can better understand the customer journey, optimize customer interactions throughout the enterprise, and improve the customer experience overall.

How has your organization leveraged customer engagement analytics?

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