Ever wonder where your feedback is going? Participate in a survey and question, “Is anyone really listening?” Respond to a, “Would you recommend this product to a friend or colleague?” and wonder, who is actually reacting to this information and what good does it actually do?
Product owners understand that customer experience is the new battleground in software. As we continue to evolve in our own product expertise, we know that if we are going to deliver a truly exceptional experience for our agents and employees, we need to have is a 360-degree view of our customer – understand what they are saying, how our products make them feel, and if the products we are developing are actually making an impact on their business.
There are three steps to building a successful voice of customer (VOC) strategy:
Leadership Commitment
Establishing a customer-centric culture starts at the top. Without executive-level buy-in there is a low probability of creating maximum impact for any customer-centric initiative. Fortunately, beginning at the top within Realogy and NRT, leaders such as Ryan Schneider and Ryan Gorman are committed to listening to users and are pushing their teams to build products that people love. It’s why we’ve adopted the mantra, “We build products with agents, not for them.” This has helped us invest time and resources into moving the needle and improving the customer experience.
Listening and Learning
A systematic method for monitoring and collecting customer feedback is key to improving the overall experience. Because customer feedback can be gathered via multiple channels, it’s important to build any listening program on a robust platform that can pivot with customers as their feedback preferences change.
Taking Action
Simply collecting data and acting on it are two very different things. This is a very iterative process and one that we are growing as we build. As such, The Product Studio has a dedicated team focused on voice of customer. This group focuses on gathering data and identifying trends to improve all stages of the user’s journey across the product line. Each month, they review the following data points on the core products:
- In-app analytics
- Google Analytics
- NPS (scores and feedback)
- Chat
- In-app feedback button (ratings and feedback)
- Help Desk tickets
Every time you leave a chat message or provide feedback in one of our apps or you are using our products, we are watching that data. No, we’re not playing big brother. But we are looking for trends. We want to see where users are getting hung up and why? Where did we lose them in the application? What did they say when they spoke to a success team member? This is all meant to pull out key data points to improve the experience going forward.
In my next blog, I’ll explore specifically how we use that data to provide a better and more complete understanding of the customer and how this understanding can greatly impact the experience for all.