Customer Experience Analytics: Is it The Right Data For Your Business?

In the ever-changing world of SaaS; consumer engagement is everything. Focusing team efforts on various channels can be overwhelming, PPC, SEO, email, VoIP for business (etc.) leaving you wondering; “Which analytics should I be using to ascertain the viability of these channels?” 

Well, the answer may be in customer experience analytics! We’ll delve into whether or not it’s the right thing for you to leverage. 

First off, what is customer experience analytics?

Customer experience analytics is the researching and collating of customer engagement data; pinpointing and eliminating bottlenecks, experience gaps, and friction in your customers' journey while clarifying everything your business is doing right. Fundamentally boosting growth within your product portfolio, while minimizing experiential blind spots and churn.

When gathering engagement data across touchpoints and streams; (comments, bounce rates, post-purchase interactions, etc.) it’s important to output your findings concisely. Garnering appraisals across said channels and presenting them effectively thereafter can be dizzying. 

Look for a service that includes a reporting tool for clients to save your marketing team from balancing multiple spinning plates. 

…Secondly, is CX analytics the right data for your business?

Survey about customer experiences - from Superoffice.com

Successful businesses unanimously have an emphasis on streamlining their leads’ journey across devices and touchpoints leading up to conversion, creating positive, seamless experiences. 

The best way to ascertain the feasibility and viability of the channels you're investing in is to collect your customers’ engagement data; using analytics to your advantage to make data-driven decisions to improve your customers’ experience. 

Analysis of your customer’s experience, such as the net promoter score and levels of customer satisfaction, or analysis of branding elements such as logo testing, gives you tell-all data needed to double down on things that are going well (amplifying brand presence and character), helping you optimize campaign reusability and ROI. Furthermore, highlighting what you need to work on or cut out, ironing out creases in your customers’ journey.  

What if you ignore CX analytics?

Not auditing your CX leads to misjudged budget allocation, you may overspend on channels that underperform while ignoring channels customers engage with the most. This has detrimental customer retention effects as you’ll actively ignore telling behaviors.

For example, allocating a majority of your budget to email while overlooking newer, engaged formats like short-form videos. Without analyzing engagement data you’ll leave opportunities on the table.

However, auditing the performance of all your channels to gather customer experience analytics can be overwhelming. Luckily for you, a slew of great dashboards (with easy one-click integrations) condense need-to-know analytics onto one page. 

Overlooking CX analytics leaves your business vulnerable, but it’s easier than ever to sidestep these risks with tools that treat you to pre-built metrics giving you openings you can’t ignore. 

How should you analyze your customer experience?

There are many touch points you can utilize when it comes to analyzing customer experience. Each one can help you optimize your CX and give your customers what they want. They include:

• Customer calls

One of the key places to look when it comes to analyzing customer experience is your customer calls. Are they being answered promptly? How long are customers waiting? Is it taking more than one call to resolve the issue?

By analyzing these aspects, you can optimize your service and provide a better experience for your customers. You may even decide that a business phone system with auto attendant is the way to go.

To further analyze customer experience, you can utilize automation to record and transcribe calls, leapfrogging the arduous task of listening to call recordings from start to finish. Moreover, transcription analysis lets you pinpoint keywords and repeated phrases as key indicators to your consumers’ experience. This helps you identify any problems that are recurring and need your attention. 

• Social media

Social media presence is paramount; brand-awareness, retention, and lead-generation all lend themselves to great and engaging pages. However, customer engagement tends to be qualitative. With long-form comments and short-form tweets, it can be hard to deduce exactly how to operate in accordance with your consumers' wants. 

A prime advantage of customer experience analytics is the ability to observe consumer engagement quantitatively. This comes in the guise of ‘sentiment analysis’ gathered from ‘social listening’, (covered later) this consolidates references and discussions to do with your brand across social media streams. 

As opposed to combing through comments for tonality, you get an actionable snapshot of exactly what your consumers want from your brand. Cutting out the guessing game and cognitive bias, ensuring your actions are congruent with your consumer's voice. 

• Your website 

Your website is one of the first places your customers visit when they’re thinking of purchasing from your company. It needs to be simple and easy to navigate to help them complete their purchase.

It’s important to carefully analyze if your customers can easily find the information they need. Do you offer the right payment and shipping options for your clients? Is it a smooth and quick process to complete a purchase or does it take longer than it should?

You also want to ensure your website is offering a cohesive experience and is visually appealing to your visitors. It needs to be engaging for your target audience to increase the chance they’ll stay on your site and complete that all-important purchase.

As you’ve guessed by now, this is where customer experience analytics come in. They can help you really get to the brass tacks of things.

By sending out customer satisfaction surveys you can gather data to see what’s working and what’s not. You can then make changes that are aligned with what your customers need, removing any obstacles, and enhancing their experience on your site.

Don’t guess when it comes to making decisions about your website, take advantage of CX analytics.

Social listening data; CX metrics you should be leveraging

Social listening is the analysis of conversations to do not just with your brand, but with the industry around you as a whole. Insights are subsequently used to make data-driven decisions and strategies that align your business’ actions with your customers’ voices.

The initial advantages of social listening are that you develop a deeper, strategic understanding of where your consumer stands with your industry and competitors. Improving your engagement with customers in the short-term (with instant quantitative metrics) while acting as a north star (using predictive qualitative forecasts) with long-term insights. 

…It doesn’t end there. Social listening skyrockets the quality of your PR and engagement as (with the assistance of AI and deep learning) you can get an upshot of discussions with sentiment analysis, meaning that your business floats on the currents of consumer trends and behavior. 

For example, if you gather data via a negative discussion or thread to do with a customer experience with your offering, you can adapt how you engage with your audience. You are effectively evaluating brand perceptions and bolstering your approach with real-time data. 

Social listening is reliable and future-facing. There’s no guesswork; with analytics, you’re tailoring your output according to the experience your customer expects. Pinpointing all underlying opportunities or threats to your brand health. 

By looking at the macro patterns of consumer engagement with the help of social listening, your CX analytics makes your business’ current success future-proof.

…Wrapping things up

In short, leveraging CX analytics is fundamental to the success of your business. Consumers want to be engaged in the right way and you cannot afford to gamble on the wrong channels while overlooking ones that work. 

Emerging tools like AI-powered social listening are at your disposal, while more traditional means of consumer engagement can be optimized with VoIP; leaving all grounds covered when you want to analyze your customers’ experience. 

Consumers have lots to say, listen to them by taking advantage of CX analytics so that you can give them exactly what they want.