TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Embracing the digital era >
- How digital technologies transform modern research >
- Customer Experience 2.0: Advantages and Disadvantages of survey automation >
- Survey automation vs. Full-cycle automation >
- Summary >
Embracing the digital era
It is not a secret that the way people communicate, work and live has been transformed in the last couple of decades. Technological advances create more possibilities and provide new opportunities for businesses.
Embracing digital technologies is inevitable. Making processes cheaper, faster and easier is at the center of all organizational improvements, so it is only natural that companies nowadays adopt new technologies at a heartbeat.
How digital technologies transform modern research
Being part of the research and analytics industry for over ten years, our team at GemSeek knows the impact technological developments have made in this area. The digital era crushed all traditional research methods. Over the past decade, the use of online methods for market research has skyrocketed. We now have more affordable and reliable methods to get and analyze data. Automated surveying and data handling have become the basis of the research industry.
Customer Experience 2.0: Advantages and Disadvantages of survey automation
New technologies also made it easier to track the end-to-end interaction between customers and companies. As a result, customer experience has become a main domain in research and the customer – the center around which company strategies revolve.
Not being an exception in the industry, automation of customer experience programs (CXP) is growing and companies can choose from various tools proving countless possibilities. This is why an important part of the decision-making process when starting such a program is finding the right tool for your organization.
Automation of surveys is a valuable addition to customer experience programs, the benefits of which cannot be disregarded:
- Cost reduction
If you want to get more results and still fit your budget, online solutions are the right choice for you. Automation software is an intelligent approach to cost containment and reduction as it requires less internal resources and supports additional tasks such as data processing and analysis.
- Flexibility
Even the most complex surveys can be easily designed and executed for years ahead with almost no additional effort. Logic can be too complex for traditional phone or on paper surveys but it is no trouble for the modern online solutions. They give you the freedom of having complex surveys, make their completion a lot easier for the customer and reduce mistakes to a minimum.
- Insights at your fingertips
If you have previously conducted phone interviews as part of your program, you know that it can take a long time until you actually get any results. Online tools are so popular because they provide real-time updates and results. You can track the progress of your survey and get intermediate results whenever you need them. Analysis can be streamlined and is usually available immediately.
- Increased engagement
When the customers you want to interview are approached with attention, they would be more willing to participate in your survey and give more extensive feedback.
Online surveys can provide the necessary convenience to your customers and bring their engagement with your brand even higher.
- Availability
A very valuable element of customer experience program for multi-country organizations is data availability for all local subsidiaries. Sharing best practices and providing full transparency to your employees is an important step, when turning your organization to customer centricity.
However, when switching to online tools for your research program, you also have to be aware of the inevitable risks:
- Limited sampling and respondent availability
Some countries are falling behind in terms of Internet adoption. Therefore, using online survey solutions might not be the best choice as you would be surveying only a very small sample of your customers. Always be aware of the geographies you want to survey when starting your program. Check the level of connectivity and the common communication channels there.
- People are bombarded with online surveys
Organizations have to be wary when creating their online messages. If you are able to engage your customers effectively, you will almost surely get their honest and extensive feedback. Personalization of the emails you send might bring you one step closer. Make sure your communication stands out without being overly persistent.
- No personal contact
For specific industries and cultures, people would be more willing to talk to an actual person rather than completing an online questionnaire. You should know your customers well enough to make the right choice.
If an online questionnaire or a phone interview best serve your needs, you can think of a hybrid survey. The latest online solutions provide flexibility of the way you conduct your surveys and let you customize your process according to the preferences of your customers.
Survey automation vs. Full-cycle automation
Today customer experience management is a highly automated process supported by software on every step. Further, to streamline the process, companies are already on the look for integrating the full survey and analytics process into a single multi-purpose tool.
- Why is full-cycle automation valuable?
Such tools are already widely available, besides organizations can easily switch their programs to a single platform allowing them to manage the entire cycle.
The added value of using a full-cycle tool is that marketing, sales and account managers are able to centralize their efforts, unify the program worldwide, and close the loop faster. The feature list of such tools usually includes the following:
- Survey builder
The easy-to-use functionalities for building surveys are a must for every customer experience management. The best solutions on the market will also let you link customer journey and touchpoints to your surveys, and create survey waves based on transaction history.
- Integration with CRM and ERP systems
Unifying the customer base throughout the company is fundamental for multinational organizations. Feeding data to and from your CRM system may be crucial for keeping track of your customers worldwide.
- Dashboard
The best dashboards will provide a set of valuable interactive charts and graphs. They will also help management and operational staff extract important insights from the survey results.
- Improvement management
After managers have identified their customers’ needs and key improvement areas, they should act upon those and drive organizational change. Being able to manage complicated longer-term improvement projects and track progress within your platform is a great opportunity to close the loop with happy customers.
Summary
The digital era has been a blessing for the modern customer experience research. The industry is thriving, the customers are taken care of better than ever and ongoing feedback allows companies to react immediately to the needs of their customers.
We at GemSeek also love technology. Our solutions are always created in accordance with the latest digital trends and our bright team is always happy to help organizations turn painlessly to digital.
