Customer Feedback Unplugged: How customer feedback drives success in large enterprises

When you know what your customers expect, value, and prefer—and how the experiences your organization is delivering measure up—you can make informed, strategic business decisions about the products/services you offer, and take meaningful action to improve customer experience (CX).

It’s important, because 80% of customers say that the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services, and 88% say that good customer service makes them more likely to purchase again.^[1]

How can you consistently gain those vital CX insights? A robust voice of the customer (VOC) program, driven by a powerful customer feedback management (CFM) system, such as NiCE CXone Feedback Management.

In a recent video interview, Ed Carter, customer success director at NiCE, talked about the transformative impact of CFM systems, specifically, how NiCE CXone Feedback Management is helping global enterprises enhance both contact center and business performance by empowering agents to take actions that improve CX.

The power of real-time feedback

When some people hear the term voice of the customer, they think of surveys. But an effective VOC program is much more. It’s a strategic, enterprise-wide approach to capturing and analyzing customer feedback—and using those insights to act on customer needs and expectations, ideally, in real time.

Done right, a VOC program drives sustained growth by helping to shape business strategies, inform product development, and improve CX in the ways that matter most to customers. And that true enterprise-wide customer-centricity pays off.

Research from Metrigy found that, versus peers, companies with the most successful VOC programs achieved:^[2]

• 18% higher revenue
• 7% lower operational costs
• 17% higher customer ratings
• 24% higher agent productivity

Dashboards empower teams to take impactful action on feedback

Real-time insight and visibility into CX empowers teams to take action and adjust behaviors in ways that positively impact customer satisfaction and loyalty.

A nimble response is important, because 57% of consumers will abandon a brand after just one or two negative CX interactions.^[3] Dashboards help companies provide VOC insights to the right people at the right time so they can take the right actions to improve CX.

Ed shared the example of how a Fortune 100 company in the financial services industry uses dashboards to empower its contact center team to improve service. The company is running its VOC program on CXone Feedback Management.

Each agent has a dashboard that displays survey responses, so agents can easily see the feedback that they've received and know how they are being perceived by their clients. The system uses speech-to-text technology that transcribes the customer’s verbatim survey comments about both their experience and the agent. This provides agents deeper insight into how their behaviors are being perceived, beyond just a numerical rating.

Additionally, each supervisor has a dashboard that displays a roll-up of their team's individual responses, so that they can see, in real time, how each team member is performing, and how the team is performing as a whole. This empowers supervisors to identify areas that need more attention, agents who would benefit from additional training, as well as customer issues that require follow-up.

How closing the loop with customers drives loyalty, revenue

To foster continuous improvement and ensure that customer issues are adequately addressed, Ed has helped the company develop an effective closed-loop feedback process. 

Closed-loop feedback is the process of acting on direct or indirect customer input collected from customer surveys, contact center interactions, and social media comments. Businesses that use closed-loop feedback don’t just analyze customer input, they act on it in order to strengthen customer relationships and improve customer experiences.

Closing the loop on particularly negative feedback is critical to rescuing at-risk customers who might otherwise churn. But it’s also beneficial to close the loop and acknowledge customers who provide exceptionally positive feedback. These are likely promoters who might act as brand advocates on social media, and refer friends and colleagues.

Unfortunately, too many companies are missing out on these valuable opportunities. According to Forrester’s 2023 State of VoC and CX Measurement Practices Survey, among companies that use a CFM tool regularly, fewer than half use it for close-the-loop case management.^[4]

That extra touch can have a big impact on revenue. A global B2B and B2C customer study found that excellent service drives repeat purchases, advocacy, and even forgiveness.

After receiving excellent customer service: an average of 75% of customers said that they forgave a company’s mistakes, 75% said they would recommend a company based on the service experience, and 71% said they made purchase decisions based on customer service quality—and those percentages were even higher among business buyers._^[5]

Orchestrating closed-loop processes and team coordination

The financial services company’s sophisticated closed-loop process is designed to help them meet their SLA to respond to every broken promise and every suboptimal process that’s revealed through customer feedback. Here’s how it works:

When customers send negative feedback after an agent interaction, the system automatically creates a case and adds it to that agent’s supervisor’s dashboard for follow-up. The company has also designated a follow-up team throughout the organization as a dedicated resource that focuses on all open alerts. They can address issues related to a specific department, or reassign closed-loop actions to contact center supervisors or agents, as necessary, for continued action management and tracking.

Finally, the system sends a variety of daily exports that help supervisors generate required reports for over 20 lines of business, including a review of calls that did not result in immediate resolution. That daily visibility into CX drivers helps the company identify and take action on:

1. Controllable aspects of agent performance that can be improved through training
2. Company processes and other aspects of client engagement that show opportunity for improvement

Check out this short video for an example of what closed-loop orchestration looks like in the CXone desktop.

Feedback-driven strategies drive exemplary customer experience

As Ed relates in the interview, because of the way it has embraced customer feedback management technology and engaged all levels of its organization in a VOC program, the financial services company he’s working with is independently rated in VOC benchmark studies as a customer experience top performer.

He notes that in a recent business review, a senior vice president at the company told him that the insights the company gains every day using CXone Feedback Management and the aggregated results it has achieved throughout the year are “board-level metrics” that are reviewed by the CEO and down throughout all levels of company leadership to guide business strategy and make long-term improvements.

That vital, executive-level engagement with CX is unfortunately rare. Only 42% of respondents in Forrester’s 2023 State of VoC And CX Measurement Practices Survey said that stakeholders ask for insights, and only 44% said that stakeholders are confident in the metrics that CX teams produce.

Typically, enterprises that implement a closed-loop process and take action on feedback as part of a successful VOC program achieve:

• Increased customer retention and revenue
• Improved customer loyalty
• Enhanced agent performance
• Improved operational efficiency
• Higher CSAT and other CX ratings
• Stronger ROI on CX investments

While Ed can’t share his client’s specific results, he notes that they have reduced overall call-in rates and improved agent performance. Most importantly, their benchmark performance establishes them as “leaders of the pack” in delivering a superior customer experience.

If you’re hungry for metrics, the NiCE website includes several Feedback Management customer case studies that include quantitative results that other enterprises have achieved.

Harness the transformative power of customer feedback

As detailed above, a well thought out process to take meaningful action on customer feedback is where the CX magic happens. That’s where you can realize the greatest business impact from your VOC program, and achieve the greatest ROI from your feedback management system.

We encourage all enterprises to take advantage of the transformative power of customer feedback. If you’re not sure where to start or how to take your existing program from A to B, our Experience Consulting team can help you every step of the way.

For more details, watch the video interview.

[1]Salesforce: State of the Connected Customer (2023)
[2] Metrigy: Going Full Circle with Customer Feedback (2023)
[3] NiCE: 2022 Digital-First Customer Experience Report (2022)
[4] Forrester: The State of VoC And CX Measurement Practices (2024)
[5] Salesforce: State of the Connected Customer (2023)