Call Center CX Surveys Requires Best of Breed Expertise

The term best of breed has been overused, but the concept of finding the best solution for the problem never goes out of style. When it comes to customer experience (CX) surveying, some call centers ignore the best option available and use whatever survey solution is bundled with their call contact center platforms. When you consider the potential value of reliable call center CX surveys, you want to make sure you have the best and most versatile customer survey tools available that can deliver actionable data in real time.

We are seeing a growing trend in call centers to integrate CX data collection and data processing as part of an overall enterprise customer CX management strategy. In an era of increased specialization, it’s becoming more challenging for call center vendors to deliver end-to-end solutions since call centers can no longer be siloed from other enterprise platforms. Adding CX data collection to call centers means managing every touchpoint, including assessment after the call. No vendor can excel at every aspect of customer contact, so using and end-to-end solution provider means you may be missing data collection and analysis opportunities along the way.

Call Center CX Perception is Far from Reality

There has always been a disconnect between the quality of service that call centers think they provide and what the customers true experience. According to a study by Clarabridge, 62 percent of organizations take pride in their call centers as a competitive differentiator, and 80 percent believe they offer “superior” customer service. However, 90 percent of customers say they are dissatisfied with customer service and only 8 percent characterize their call center experience as “superior.” The only way to correct this disconnect is with better CX data.

The importance of call centers as contributors to CX also continues to grow. DMG Consulting expects that the number of call center seats will increase 24 percent by 2020. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 20 percent of companies will dedicate employees to monitor and guide neural networks to augment intelligence for analytics. Many of these neural networks are being created specifically to deal with customer service and call center concerns.

Clearly, call center CX data collection, data mining, and data analytics are playing a more important role in shaping customer experience, so to gain the best results requires the best call center CX survey and data gathering tools.

Call Center Platforms Are Not Geared to CX Research

This is where adopting best-of-breed call center CX surveys and data collection tools makes a real difference. Most of the call center technology providers such as Genesys, Verint, Nice, and InContact include survey data collection as part of their overall offering, but their data collection tools and data processing are not versatile and are hard to adapt to modern CX solutions. For example, some of the most common survey shortfalls in call center platforms include:

• Inflexible solutions that don’t adapt well to custom requirements;
• Single-mode email programs regardless of the service channel medium;
• Very slow implementation;
• Lack of integration between survey data and call center operational data;
• Lack of real-time reporting and transcription for faster response;
• Costly implementation of API to enhance data integration and real-time sample management; and
• Lack of CX survey best practice consulting.

Creating and managing customer surveys in the call center is a specialized discipline that requires specific expertise and customizable tools.

Voice-driven IVRs are Ideal for Call Center CX Surveys

As experts in CX research for the call center, we continue to see the voice-driven IVR proving itself to be a versatile CX measurement tool:

• It represents the preferred survey mode for call center consumers of any age or demographic.
• It is user friendly with voice response rather than menu choices.
• It provides 100% representative of a call center consumer.
• It delivers the largest volume of open ended, qualitative data.
• It is immediately actionable – using real-time transcription, automated systems can flag concerns that need immediate call center attention.

Most importantly, using voice-driven IVR surveys gives the customer a voice they feel will be heard at the same time it provides the call center with real-time, actionable CX intelligence.

In the age of specialization, it pays to employ best-of-breed tools to measure CX in the call center. Call center CX surveys should not be an afterthought. You need to adopt a best-of-breed IVR survey strategy to get the best results.