In my recent blog, I began to delve in to the untapped data goldmine – also known as the voice of the customer (VOC). There is a wealth of learning and knowledge literally at our finger tips waiting to be unleashed to help us better understand the customer and, ultimately, deliver a truly exceptional experience for our agents and employees. Let’s take a look at how we are making this happen.
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 our product line.
From that data, the VOC team then meets with our product owners once per month to review the data and provide recommendations on how we can improve our products and make adjustments in our roadmaps based on the user’s feedback. Recent examples of how we are adjusting the roadmaps in practice are:
Desk
What users told us:
- “I can’t find X app.”
- “The photos are distracting.”
- “The image should visually represent the application so I don’t have to guess what I’m clicking on.”
- “I read top to bottom so make the title of the app what I see first.”
- “I missed the deep links because they weren’t a different color.”
- “I need to get in and get to work. Make it quick, easy and as little scrolling as possible.”
How we adjusted based on user feedback:
- We improved the location of “Add App” to ensure users didn’t miss their favorite applications
- Eliminated the distracting images
- Replaced busy, distracting images with icons that specifically represent what the application does
- Moved the app title to the top for improved scanability
- Changed the color of the deep links to blue so they are noticeable and clickable
- Reduced the app card size to get more apps to a row and reduced the welcome message – all designed to get users more information and less scrolling so they can get to work quicker
Prospect Square
What users told us:
- “The design is boring.”
- “We miss the style and vibrancy of imagery.”
- “I want to keep the imagery fresh so each time my clients receive a report they visually can see it includes updated data.”
- “We want to make it feel more local.”
How we adjusted based on user feedback:
- In April, we introduced imagery back into our Market, Area and Quarterly Reports.
- We are now iterating off that and will soon introduce:
- A library of images that rotate
- Agents will have the ability to choose from photography themes (i.e. urban, coastal, island, interiors, etc.)
- Plus, agents will be able to upload their own custom images to give their reports a very hyperlocal feel
Additional adjustments we are working on over the next two quarters, thanks to VOC feedback:
- Make the Help Desk information more prominent (Desk)
- Introduce robust search for content and apps (Desk)
- Ability for users to update profile information by themselves (Desk)
- Update design, output and data points (InSight)
- Improved Agent websites (InTouch)
- Improved contact importing (InTouch)
- Contact syncing (across products)
- Updated design and output (MarketQuest)
At the end of the day, the customer is top of mind in everything we do. We can’t assume we know what our customer wants. To stay ahead of the competition and meet our customers where they are, we have to listen to what they are saying and then act proactively. The voice of the customer is helping us hone our products into something that truly delights agents. Instead of simply collecting data, we are now building a team to really understand and react to it. If we know the problems our customers are having, it allows us to get to the root of it. And on the flip side, if we know where customers are finding joy in our products, it helps us expand on it.
It’s exciting to see how far we’ve come in our product evolution. We’ll continue to keep you updated along this journey.
