When it comes to customer experience software, having the right tools can make all the difference. In a field that is increasingly driven by technology, they can help you provide a consistently awesome customer experience that will boost return business and revenue. But how do you know which tools will produce the best results?
In this article, we’ll cover the essential customer experience tools that will help grow your business. If there’s one you’re particularly interested in, click on the menu below and it will take you straight to it!
Table of Contents
- Sentiment Analysis
- Customer Satisfaction Metrics
- Multi-Channel Surveys
- Customer Feedback Management
- Customer Journey Maps
- Conclusion
Sentiment Analysis
Reading individual customer reviews is insightful. But understanding how your whole customer base feels is a complete game-changer. This is where sentiment analysis comes in.
Sentiment analysis works by examining text to determine its emotional tone. At its base level, sentiment analysis classes text simply as negative, positive or neutral. However, more advanced customer experience software can interpret and process specific human emotions. It enables you to take large amounts of customer feedback and extract valuable, actionable insights from their own words.
Using sentiment analysis across all your reviews and feedback is an amazing way to keep a pulse on your customers. It allows you to:
- Monitor your customer relationships and keep them on the right track
- Assess your brand position and find ways to stand out from the crowd
- Make key improvements to the customer journey
- Create more targeted marketing campaigns that speak directly to your customer base
Customer Satisfaction Metrics
To properly monitor and improve your performance, you need a clear measurement of customer satisfaction. That’s why all good customer experience software should involve some kind of metric tool. Some of the most popular metrics include the Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES) and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).
NPS tools and other metrics are effective because they give you a tangible number or score that you can use to benchmark your performance. By tracking your scores, you can clearly see when and where you need to make improvements. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing your scores grow over time!
But remember, the best customer experience software should allow you to easily monitor your metrics and offer meaningful analytics. Why? Diving deeper into your scores and using the insights to take action is where the real magic happens. For example, studies have shown that increasing your NPS by only 7 points correlates to a 1% increase in revenue (1).
Read more: How to measure customer satisfaction KPI: NPS, CSAT, CES, & CLI
Multi-Channel Surveys
Feedback is an essential part of any customer experience software. But when you only offer one way to give feedback the amount of data you receive will always fall short.
Your customer experience software should enable survey distribution in a variety of ways, like email, SMS, QR code, via tablet and even directly through Wifi and Bluetooth. That’s because sharing your voice of the customer survey through multiple channels has tons of benefits for your business. It:
- Allows you to cast your net as wide as possible, resulting in higher participation and more information for you to work with
- Means you can orientate yourself to the needs of your respondents (no matter which stage of the customer journey they are at
- Is inherently user-friendly, resulting in fewer people abandoning your voice of the customer survey
- Allows feedback to be gathered at any time and from any location
In other words, you will get more feedback from a larger demographic of customers. And as we know, feedback is key for keeping your customers happy and helping your business flourish!
Customer Feedback Management
[ca-form id=”194451″ align=”left” var1=”https://www.customer-alliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/customer-alliance-customer-experience-software-tools-guide-EN-download-1.pdf”]
With so many other things demanding your time, being able to manage all your feedback in one place is essential. Not only that, but it’s a key part of making your customer experience the absolute best it can be! So how is customer feedback management different from simply collecting feedback?
Simply put, a customer feedback management tool allows you to not just get the feedback in the first place, but to analyse the results and work out what best to do with them.
It gives you real-time data to work with, so you can make fast business decisions with the facts and figures to back them up. It helps you get consistent, high-quality feedback. For industries where public reviews are important, it plays a key role in online reputation management. Ultimately, it makes it easier for you to improve your customer experience (and increase revenue in the process!)
Customer feedback management should be at the heart of any voice of the customer platform. Look for a tool that not only gives you enough information but is easy to both use and understand. Bonus points if it allows you to segment your feedback and integrate with your existing CRM software!
Customer Journey Maps
Just as traditional maps can be used to plot a physical journey, customer journey maps help visualise each interaction a customer has with your brand.
Customer journey mapping covers the complete buying journey. This means everything from seeing an advert to purchasing to telling a friend about your service (and all the steps in between!)
Along with physical interactions, customer journey maps dive deep into the customer’s emotions throughout. This means not only highlighting positive thoughts and feelings but also any pain points or hesitations they might experience.
As a customer experience management tool, customer journey mapping is super valuable. It can help you:
- Better understand your customers so you can mitigate pain points and provide a better service
- Identify any gaps in your service or communications
- Determine which department is responsible for which stage of the journey
- Build detailed customer personas that will also help other areas of your business
Finding solutions to customer pain points in particular can have a huge impact. One study from Oracle found that 43% of consumers have blacklisted a brand as a result of just one bad experience (2). Eliminate pain points from your customer journey and you can imagine what that would do for your business.
Read more: How a Customer Journey Map Helps Offer Unique Experiences
Conclusion
Good customer experience software tools can benefit any industry, from restaurant and hospitality businesses to e-commerce and automotive brands. They help you better understand your customers, improve customer satisfaction and set you on the road to success.
However, to help maximise your results, it’s critical to not only select appropriate tools but to combine them into one easy-to-use management system. They are intended to make your job simpler, after all!
Implementing customer experience software allows you to get the best return from these tools and generate real results for your business. So why not give it a try? Book your free, live demo with Customer Alliance and see what our software can do for you.
Sources:
- London School of Economics, ‘The Numbers Behind the Net Promoter System’ 2019
- Oracle, ‘One Size Doesn’t Fit All’ 2019
