Safeguards at the Source: Ensuring the Integrity of Your Customer Experience Data

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1 Safeguards at the Source: Ensuring the Integrity of Your Customer Experience Data An InMoment White Paper Copyright 2015 InMoment Inc. All rights reserved

2 Overview Information Is Power The more relevant your information, the more powerful it is. The more powerful it is, the bigger advantage it represents. Taking charge of data integrity is key to your company s ability to build a reliable leg up on the competition. Best Practices Comprehensive data integrity solutions start with prevention from the inside. Deliberate training and clear, well-communicated company policies ensure employees don t become an obstacle to getting authentic feedback from your customers. Data Integrity Technology The tools in your VoC program should complement your company policies to provide a comprehensive safety net. Data integrity technology approaches your incoming customer feedback in three ways: prevention, detection, and cleansing. Information Is Power Information is power. True. Exactly how much power, however, depends largely on the integrity and validity of the raw data behind it. Information derived directly from the source your customers can give your company a Information derived directly from the source your customers can give your company a competitive advantage. Fortunately for you, ensuring the integrity of your customer experience data is well within your control. By implementing best practices in your Voice of Customer (VoC) program from the outset and choosing VoC technology with built-in monitoring abilities, you can ensure your organization enjoys high-voltage information behind their everyday efforts to enhance the customer experience and improve your bottom line. competitive advantage at any stage of the game: R&D, marketing, operations, sales, customer service, etc. As long as it s authentic. sales@inmoment.com InMoment, Inc. 2

3 Best Practices Deliberate training and clear, well-communicated policies will help ensure employees don t become an obstacle to getting authentic feedback from your customers. Zero-Tolerance Policy Implementing a definitive, zero-tolerance policy for employee fraud and survey gaming is an important first step. Manipulating survey results decreases the value of customer feedback, negatively affects the representation of your brand, and creates an unhealthy internal environment. Reward Behaviors, Not Scores For the most part, people do what they re incented to do. Tying bonus programs to customer satisfaction scores encourages employees to focus exclusively on getting more feedback and better numbers. This often results in employees pressuring (even bribing) customers, recruiting friends and family to stack the deck, and even completing fraudulent surveys themselves. Research shows the wiser course is to tie incentives to measurable changes in positive employee behaviors. The wiser course is to tie incentives to measurable changes in positive employee behaviors. Maintain a List of Employee Phone Numbers To ensure employees don t take phone surveys on behalf of their own locations, VoC systems can track the numbers of those who have already taken your survey and screen for duplicates. Make sure your VoC partner has an up-to-date list of employee phone numbers. Data Integrity Technology Good internal policies and practices are critical but can t account for all challenges to the integrity of your customer experience data. The tools in your VoC program should complement your company policies to provide a comprehensive safety net. Data integrity technology approaches your incoming customer feedback in three ways: 1. Prevention 2. Detection 3. Cleansing Prevention The first step to preserving the integrity of your customer data is proactively identifying and preventing the input of fraudulent data. Here s how: Validation Code Customization One-time-use Point of Sale (POS) survey codes are essential for reliable customer feedback. Work with your VoC provider to determine the best method for generating unique survey codes at each customer interaction. sales@inmoment.com InMoment, Inc. 3

4 Mod-10 Validation Codes Once you re generating unique codes, a checksum formula called mod-10 should be employed to validate these identification numbers. By creating a variation of this algorithm, your brand can generate unique POS survey codes, which allow only verified customers to take surveys. Digital Fingerprinting Create customer profiles for monitoring suspicious behavior. Using unique digital identifiers through the user s browser, VoC systems can track the frequency of surveys submitted from the same digital fingerprint. Tarpitting Limiting the number of surveys allowed from a single IP address during a given time eliminates a prevalent method for submitting fraudulent data. Speed Patrolling Monitoring the time it takes customers to complete surveys helps identify and exclude the results from surveys completed significantly quicker than the average. This keeps unreliable data from incentive hunters and survey bots from influencing your customer data. Automatic Number Identification (ANI) ANI technology allows you to identify and track all incoming numbers for callers taking phone surveys even those that are blocked. This simple step allows you to flag suspicious survey behavior tied to a single phone number. Abnormal Survey Volume Changes Track spikes in survey volume. A sudden surge in surveys taken at one of your brand s locations could be a sign of survey fraud. Scoring Anomalies Every brand strives for perfection which is a good thing. However, too many perfect scores is a reason for suspicion. Unusual changes in scores (up or down) diverging from the historical data of a location should raise red flags. Unusual changes in scores (up or down) diverging from the historical data of a location should raise red flags. Unusual Percentage Changes in Unique Respondent Data Variety is your friend. Locations with low percentages of unique telephone numbers or IP addresses can should be reviewed and confirmed. Cleansing After completing the front-end screening of individual surveys, a macro-scale data analysis of customer experience data can detect red flags within the normal patterns and trends of your data. From there, necessary steps can be taken to eliminate misleading data from your results. Detection Once information has been collected, additional screening measures can be taken to detect potential problems: sales@inmoment.com InMoment, Inc. 4

5 Summary Whether you re concerned about unhappy customers, crafty competitors, or improperly incented employees, there are plenty of methods available for safeguarding the integrity of your customer experience data. With good policies and enforcement, clear and consistent communication, and reliable technology, you can rest assured the feedback you get from your customers can be used to build positive and profitable relationships with your customers, while creating a supportive work environment for employees. About InMoment InMoment is a cloud-based customer experience (CX) optimization platform that helps brands leverage customer stories to inform better business decisions and create more meaningful relationships with their customers. Through its Experience Hub, InMoment provides Voice of Customer (VoC), Social Reviews & Advocacy, and Employee Engagement solutions, as well as strategic guidance, support, and services to more than 350 brands in 95 countries. The company is the leading VoC vendor for the food services, retail, and contact center industries, with expertise in B2B, financial services, lodging, and numerous others. For more information, visit sales@inmoment.com InMoment, Inc. 5