Verizon On How To Overcome Two Big Voice Of The Customer Challenges

We all know the importance of the “voice of the customer.” We all trumpet the notion of customer centricity.

When it comes time to take action, many within our customer contact community unfortunately fall victim to two key challenges.

1) How do we truly acquire an accurate, robust snapshot of what our customers want and need?
2) How do we use that voice of the customer intelligence to actually elevate the experience?

During a speaker spotlight interview at the recent CCW Nashville, Verizon’s Kelley Kurtzman and ETech’s Jim Iyoob shared guidance for overcoming both challenges.

Whereas many organizations attempt gimmicky tactics for solving the first channel, Iyoob points leaders in a simpler, more straightforward direction: their interaction. By analyzing what happens within interactions across all touch points, organizations can learn what they truly need to know about their customers.

"[You're] sitting on the largest dataset on the planet in your interactions with your customers," declares Iyoob. "By using a combination of human intelligence and artificial intelligence, you're able to get true voice of the customer data. [You can learn] what your clients or customers are telling you that they want and need every day."

In its native state, however, that data only reveals how customer demands and sentiments. It does not necessarily provide an obvious blueprint for accordingly adapting the experience.

“We know how they're consuming our products, we know what their lifetime value is, we know everything about them,” notes Kurtzman. “How do you take that information, feed it into some of the tools, and get those insights out to our channels. “How do we make sure that we're really solving pain points on behalf of the customer - and know where to meet them - before they get there,” asks Kurtzman.

Kurtzman, of course, is able to answer her own question: by adopting a predictive approach to the customer experience.

By committing to anticipating customer needs and leveraging tools that gather and report predictive insights, the organization can proactively prepare for (if not resolve) customer issues.

"We have systems that we're using that really feed information on 'what is the next best action' for our customers,” explains Kurtzman. “[Our tool] serves up that information so [they] don't have to spend all that time on discovery and asking questions. [They] have the information - it helps [them] be more efficient for [their] customer…Hundreds of millions of times last year, we served up a next-best action for our rep so they could do it on behalf of our customer."

Embedded below, the full interview features more granular insights and recommendations from Iyoob and Kurtzman.