Can Data Analytics Help You Understand How Customers Feel About Your Brand?

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1 A Virtual Think Tank Executive Summary Can Data Analytics Help You Understand How Customers Feel About Your Brand? Frost & Sullivan, a leader in growth, innovation and leadership for over 50 years, recently assembled a select group of Customer Experience executives from diverse organizations to participate in a forum on how to intelligently mine the wealth of data now available in the marketplace to build leading-edge customer strategies and maximize brand impact.

2 A Frost & Sullivan Perspective on Data Analytics MODERATOR n Michael DeSalles Principal Analyst, Digital Transformation Frost & Sullivan PANELISTS n Brad Barclay Customer Care Center Director State Farm n Louella Calingo Manager of Quality Assurance Member Services Dollar Shave n Chris Lah Senior Director Cincinnati Children s Hospital Medical Center n Keith Magee CX Practice Principal Verizon As noted in a recent Frost & Sullivan Stratecast analysis, The World Moves Fast, and Data is Driving Part 1: Spotlight on Big Data, Analytics, and Business Intelligence: One of the drivers for Big Data and analytics is that many users expect that the more data they have, the more likely they are to find links and meaning within the data. While it is true that more data may more reliably define patterns and indications, it is also an unavoidable fact that human analysis is still required to build an understanding about how things are related and the why? or so what? aspects of these relationships. For example, in the online world, companies are more likely to want to understand their social network sentiment analysis how users perceive not just products and services but, indeed, the brand itself. Additionally, it is worthwhile to gather data from multiple systems and data sources in order to get to a single version of the truth. At that point, the analyst, marketer or customer experience executive can make informed decisions to improve sentiment, as well as the brand, website, or product. The observations above, and their possible applications to enhancing the customer experience and improving ROI, formed the crux of a recent Frost & Sullivan Virtual Think Tank discussion. It was moderated by Michael DeSalles, Principal Analyst, Digital Transformation, Frost & Sullivan, and attended by a cross-industry group of customer contact executives. Big Data: Challenges and Opportunities These industry leaders discussed the complexity, challenges and opportunities available to intelligently mine the wealth of data now available in the marketplace, especially as they seek to build leading-edge customer strategies and maximize brand impact. As presented by DeSalles, key customer intelligence touchpoints and the process needed to leverage them are fully illustrated in the diagram below: EDITOR n Patricia Jacoby Frost & Sullivan 2

3 The chart above is an example of a leading BPO provider customer analytics platform. The platform measures customer sentiment, emotions and behavior across an omni-channel environment in the early stage of any given customer interaction. This advanced analysis has been a customer experience market guide for several years. Its purpose is to seek patterns of customer behavior and then provide a roadmap for specific company responses in the market. Results from effectively implementing these processes could include improving the customer experience, reducing customer effort, reducing cost to serve and increasing revenue. Assessing the Data Analytics Journey As the Virtual Think Tank began, the participants were asked to assess where their organizations were on the Data Analytics journey. Their replies ran the gamut and ranged from still on the learning edge to underway and seeking smarter ways to gather data to actually pretty advanced at using data analytics to build business and to maximize opportunities [by] bringing products to market using some of the tools and data that we have. No doubt this small group s responses are fairly representative of the range of readiness of many organizations and their data analytics sophistication, particularly as it pertains to understanding their customers and delivering on their brand s promise. It s really important to understand the member journey, how it changes, what those pain points are, and how those pain points can transfer to an in-person retail experience. Louella Calingo Manager of Quality Assurance, Member Services Dollar Shave The participants were also asked about their data sources. Keith Magee, CX Practice Principal, Verizon, explained that due to the nature of their business, his organization was able to capture lots of general user information from subscribers, and both B2B and B2C clients. They also leverage customer traffic and entry points, which is useful for culling customer data. 3

4 Louella Calingo, Manager of Quality Assurance, Member Services, Dollar Shave, stated that it was important for her company to integrate their data and share it with agents. Her company currently does this by using a custombuilt analytics tool. Big Data and analytics can provide additional and dramatic insights into customer behavior. Augmenting traditional contact center data with Big Data can provide meaningful and relevant information that make it easier to navigate the customer journey. Michael DeSalles Principal Analyst, Digital Transformation Frost & Sullivan The issue of scrubbing or normalizing data was also addressed. Best practices such as de-duping, merging and making sure records were unique were also discussed. As Magee stated, You have to go through and actually use one of the many, many tools that are out there to merge your data, dedupe the data, and then find out where you have blanks [in the data]. Methods for verifying addresses and billing information were also covered. Chris Lah, Senior Director, Cincinnati Children s Hospital Medical Center, stated that he had a team of analysts and internal sources who could clean up their data: We re lucky that we get a lot of the scrubbing and the purifying of that, and eventually the compiling of it, by either [a] team I ve got inside, another part of the revenue cycle at the hospital or by the vendor themselves. These are examples of just a few of the ways today s organizations are working to clean and use data intelligently. Delivering on Data s Promise: Gaining Actionable Insights A key question posed to the participants was, What actionable information can be gained from available data? Replies to this question included: Observing the tools and channels that customers use Determining whether more or less calls needed to be made Determining the customer s preferred method of communication i.e., phone, , text, etc. Assessing where better internal communications were needed to better serve customers Identifying and tagging important customer issues Calingo elaborated on getting actionable information (and better understanding the customer) when she observed that, our team tags issues [when] we can see that there is a dislike for a specific product. We take what we find there and match that up with the qualitative data and then [we] go from there to our product development team. So, using what we see in the front lines, seeing if that is applicable to any other part of the business, and then seeing how we can combine it all to make a business case for improving the member experience. 4

5 Magee underscored the growing importance of leveraging social media analytics for actionable insights. These ongoing, online activities of the customer can serve as KPIs and help organizations stay in touch with both good and bad customer experiences, as well as help to build the brand in a social community. Magee explained that his organization uses click stream data to obtain valuable insights about online customer behavior, particularly shopping behavior. This type of real-time analytics represents a growing data trend. In fact, online micro-targeting and segmentation are fast replacing traditional marketing segmentation. This method shows what your customer is doing online, when they are doing it, and the context in which it is being done. All in all, it s hard to beat that kind of triple play of information. It helps organizations know their customers and use the data gathered to better serve them, ultimately increasing revenue. Tell Me What Big Data Will Do For Me in 2020 DeSalles wrapped up the discussion by asking the group about how they believed data analytics could help them understand the needs and demands of their customers in The participants stressed the importance of understanding the full customer journey, addressing pain points, and the increasingly important role that technology plays in serving customers. As Calingo stated, It s really important to understand the member journey, how it changes, what those pain points are, and how those pain points can transfer to an in-person retail experience. Due to the nature of our business, Verizon is able to capture lots of general user information from subscribers, and both B2B and B2C clients. We leverage customer traffic and entry points, which is useful for culling customer data. Keith Magee Customer Experience Practice Verizon 5

6 Brad Barclay, Customer Care Center Director, State Farm, summed up his thoughts about the needs of customers in 2020 as follows: I would say [it s about] the customer journey and customer expectations and how customers are behaving differently. I think technology will play a huge role in how they want to interact with our company and probably every company that is on this call. And social media, where does social media come in to play here? There are a lot of things that are maybe not even as far off as To further answer this question, we turn once again to Frost & Sullivan s Stratecast analysis: Increasingly, an organization s web presence is its front door to the world, so data from online and digital sources is a key part of the Big Data mix. Site analytics are essential to help the business craft and continually update its online presence to monitor visitor behavior, levels of engagement, conversions, and more to support on-the-fly site personalization that maximizes business results. Digital analytics quantify user actions and, ultimately, the results associated with digital marketing campaigns. Social analytics enable organizations to monitor what is being said about the organization across all social venues. We are challenged to describe the effect that Big Data will have on day-today lives in Yet, it is quite possible to map some possible impacts of Big Data against the following key Mega Trends: 6 SMART Cities and Infrastructure Consumer Empowerment Virtual World Robo-Assistants Cybersecurity

7 Conclusion: Leveraging Mega Trends and Big Data to Better Serve Customers The Mega Trends that best address whether Big Data can help organizations better understand customers convey the following: By 2020, the democratization of data will make Big Data available to virtually every inhabitant of the planet. The primary difference between this scenario and the web searches of today will be the access to real-time heartbeat and performance data about practically every aspect of our lives, accessible wherever we are. This will be extremely discomforting but also enlightening, and for better or worse, it will begin to optimize society. It is the opinion of Frost & Sullivan that Big Data and analytics can provide additional and dramatic insights into customer behavior. Augmenting traditional contact center data with Big Data can provide meaningful and relevant information that make it easier to navigate the customer journey. Frost & Sullivan believes that Big Data and analytics will be critical tools that will enable centers of excellence within enterprises to: Build more accurate client profiles and determine Customer Lifetime Value Construct robust knowledge bases that includes important customer demographic information Measurably improve the management of cyber security threats and regulatory compliance rules Tailor sales efforts to better identify prospects with a higher probability of closing deals, using predictive analytics Better train brand ambassadors in order to improve the experience, drive higher revenues and acquire new customers Identify churn factors based on social media mining and/or call recordings Segment the customer base in order to offer higher value service and develop new offerings Proactively react in real-time; helping agents select the next best actions Reduce agent attrition, improve job performance and employee satisfaction As this democratization of data continues to occur, successfully leveraging the most relevant data to serve customers will be a key factor in determining which organizations survive and which organizations falter in the near future. Additionally, robotics and technology will continue to have huge roles in the contact center and will also shape and change the customer experience going forward. 7