If you’re reading this newsletter, there’s a high chance that you consider yourself to be a CX professional, practitioner or expert.

But what does that actually mean?

The best definition I’ve heard of CX is the “sum of every engagement a customer has with your organisation”.

If you consider that definition to be accurate, I would conclude that a true CX professional needs to have oversight of every possible interaction that customers are having with your business.

And the only practical way to achieve oversight is to get your hands on the individual, or aggregated records of these interactions.

Which leads me to the point of today’s email …

9 Untapped Data Sources A “CX Professional” Should Be Analysing

It has always perplexed me when a CX team only focuses on solicited feedback from customers. Just because your CX team doesn’t own a certain piece of the customer journey does not mean that they should not have any oversight of this touch-point.

A prime example of this is the digital customer journey. It’s extremely common for CX teams to have little to no visibility of how customers are performing in digital channels. If you were to ask a CX team what the “bounce rate” of users is on the website, it’s highly likely that they would have no clue.

Yet any user who is “bouncing” from your website has either:

A) Found what they needed and left

B) Were unable to find what they wanted and left dissatisfied

So if the above is true for every single user on your website, would you not argue that the CX team has an inherent responsibility to understand, analyse & (potentially) influence digital statistics to enhance the customer experience?

OK rant over. Below are the 10 data sources a CX professional should be analysing 👇

#1 - Web Analytics - Google / Adobe Analytics

There is a WEALTH of digital insight that CX teams could obtain by getting closer to Google & Adobe Analytics.

Metrics like bounce rates, click-throughs, average time spent, conversion & revenue can provide CX teams with journey-level insights like never before. This data can be used to contextualise customer feedback AND can also be used to prove / disprove hypothesis’.

Example - At a previous company I worked at, I used Adobe Analytics to confirm my hypothesis that the “Contact Us” page was difficult to understand. We A:B tested my hypothesis, and I was wrong! Nonetheless, the Adobe Analytics data was such a powerful way to have a data-driven discussion.

#2 - Social Media / Digital Marketing

Whilst I’m sure most CX professionals have some visibility on what’s happening on social media & review sites, I urge you all to take one step further.

Most social listening tools have the capability to overlay sentiment & text analytics on top of the discussions that are being had on your social channels. This is an invaluable source of customer data which is rarely analysed to the extent that it could be.

In addition to this, Facebook Business Manager / Facebook Insights produces a wealth of insight in regards to the content that resonates best with your customers. It’s highly likely that your marketing team is producing organic & paid content for your brand however it is very rare that a CX team actually analyses the success of these campaigns.

There are ways that you can extract these insights in a raw data format which could prove to be an invaluable insight for your business. If you want some inspiration on the type of insight you can obtain from Facebook, check out this template I produced below:

#3 - Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool which allows you to understand the organic ways that customers are landing on your website.

It is a great insight to understand the different search terms that customers use to land on your website, as well as keywords that may not be as optimised as they could be.

If you improve the amount of users who organically land on your website, it can subsequently lead to reduced paid traffic - allowing you to reallocate that marketing spend for other revenue-generating activities.

#4 - Email Marketing Campaigns

What is the average click-through rate for email marketing campaigns at your company? Why don’t you know the answer to this question?

As a CX professional, you should be the source of insight for your organisation…

Not only should you be the source of insight - these insights should also be used to influence future business outcomes - both in customer retention and customer acquisition.

Too many CX professionals view marketing as a separate business function that they don’t need to get involved in and I believe this is entirely incorrect. “Marketers” should be using customer insights to segment, personalise & test different concepts within their email campaigns.

Ideally, you are both responsible for the core KPIs which stem from these campaigns - open rates, click through rates & conversion!

#5 - Website Search Bar

How many times has a customer typed something in the search bar on your website and not received an answer?

The data captured in a search bar is a critical source of customer insight which is often slept on. Frequently, customers will be redirected to a generic FAQ page which can become a large source of frustration - leading to the customer switching to a competitor, or calling your contact centre.

Website searches should be continuously monitored, with FAQs consistently updated in-line with new searches. I personally find it absurd that organisations typically have 12-15 FAQs on their website. You’re telling me that your customers only have 10-15 consistent questions that they ask?

#6 - Call Centre Data

This section warrants a whole separate newsletter as there is SO much untapped data within a contact centre.

To keep it brief, I’ve listed 5 sources of contact centre data that a CX team should be regularly monitoring:

1. Contact Reasons - Email, Webchat, Calls

2. Contact Volumes & Average Handle Time (AHT)

3. Frontline Agent Ideas / Pain Points

4. Insights from Call & Webchat Transcripts

5. Customer Complaints

I truly view the contact centre as the lifeblood of an organisation - it is the nucleus that moderates the customer’s perception of your organisation. Make sure you’re leveraging this invaluable source of data whenever you make “customer insight” decisions.

#7 - Operational Data - Transaction Volumes, Claim Length etc

Operational data is such a broad term and it typically requires curiosity for a CX professional to get their hands on it.

Examples of operational data would include, but is not limited to:

• Customer Claims data - number of claims made, average length of claim, average claim value
  

• Transaction / Sales Volumes - number of sales, average order value, fulfilment length
  

• Demographic data - customer preferences, location, gender, age

This data can be used at an aggregate level, or can be connected to individual customer records using a unique identifier to stitch things together.

As a CX Professional, this data is golden as it can contextualise your customer insights substantially. I bet there’s some form of operational data that you don’t yet have your hands on - be innovative & think expansively.

#8 - Customer / Self Service Portals

Do your customers have some way to self-serve online? Do you know what their experience is on these portals?

Too often, CX professionals neglect obtaining insights from self-service portals as they don’t have control over the infrastructure.

These portals are centrepiece to providing a great customer experience and should subsequently be examined by a CX team in a number of ways:

• Surveys whilst logged in - will provide the subjective view of the customer

• Usage statistics - provides an objective insight into uptake

• Content & UX A:B testing - allows you to determine whether changes to the user experience have a positive or negative impact on the experience

Customer / self-service portals are typically managed by an IT team who aren’t well-versed in delivering phenomenal experiences. That is why I’m a firm believer that a CX team should have a strong say on the way that experience is delivered in this channel - surprise & delight your customers on a 1:1 level where you can.

#9 - Chatbots

Did you know that Chatbots are only 40-50% effective? If that’s the case, what’s happening the other 50-60% of the time?

If you don’t know the answer to the above, you aren’t doing your job properly as a CX team.

Once again, I fully appreciate that a dedicated chatbot team work on this product on a daily basis. But they aren’t looking at things from a birdseye perspective. They’re in the weeds; trying to optimise the technology.

As a CX professional, it is your job to uncover the friction points that customers are having by measuring chatbot effectiveness & leveraging sentiment & text analytics to uncover insights.