With all the interchangeable business terms out there, things may seem a bit hazy at times in trying to understand either what we do as a company. Moreover, just the overall Voice of the Customer (VoC) field. Therefore, it may be helpful for some to become better acquainted with several critical terms and definitions when discussing anything related to improving the customer experience (CX). After all, time and time again, those like Forbes preach the value of CX. Gartner even declared VoC as ‘magical.’
Voice of the Customer (VoC) Related Terminologies & Definitions
Aspect Based Sentiment Analysis (ABSA)
Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) is a relatively new and fine-grained sentiment analysis method that extracts aspects, classifies the associated sentiment polarities, and determines the views as the cause of the sentiment. For instance, we can perform ABSA to extract value from consumer feedback by analyzing the textual content and categorizing opinions by (product or service) aspect while identifying the sentiment related to every aspect. Learn more here.
Call Center Analytics
Known as a process, call center analytics is when customer data is collected and analyzed to uncover valuable insights about your service organization’s performance. Among them are customer satisfaction (CSAT), revenue, customer retention, customer effort scores, and service-level agreements (SLAs).
Closed-loop feedback
Closed-loop feedback, or closing the loop, involves following up with customers who have provided feedback. The purpose of closed-loop feedback isn’t simply to collect valuable data; instead, to start a conversation with the customer that will yield mutual benefits.
Consumer Insights
Consumer insights (or customer insights) refer to the process of understanding a customer’s behavior and interpreting it to generate conclusions that can be used to improve product development and customer service.
CSAT Score
The Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is a key performance indicator that measures how satisfied your customer is with your product or service. Calculating the CSAT aims to gauge how happy the customer is about a particular event, experience, product feature, etc.
It usually appears at the end of customer surveys and as a question similar to this: How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the [experience/product/product attribute] you received?
Customer centricity
Customer-centricity refers to the company’s decision to put its customers at the core of the business. It can contain three main pillars, and its company objectives, goals, and mission revolve around creating a positive experience for the customers.
Customer experience (CX)
Customer experience refers to the internal and subjective behaviors when they encounter any direct or indirect communication with a brand. According to Harvard Business Review, direct contact with a company generally occurs when the customer buys its products or uses its services and is often initiated by the buyer. Indirect contact commonly relates to unintentional encounters with the brand (e.g., word-of-mouth recommendations, ads, news, reviews, etc.).
Customer experience platform
A customer experience platform is broadly considered a technological or advanced tool that enables companies to plan and achieve their goals regarding buyer interaction. Such advanced programs combine consumer behavioral data, reviews related to the individual’s customer journey, and artificial intelligence (AI) to report personalized recommendations and insights that are actionable and possibly predictive.
Customer feedback
Customer feedback refers to the information that comes directly from consumers about the satisfaction or dissatisfaction they have experienced with a particular product or service. In other words, it is all the information generated by consumers and/or buyers of a specific brand. This information comes in many formats (e.g., text or speech) and through different channels.
Customer Journey
The customer journey refers to the steps a shopper takes before making a purchase. Each step is known as a “touchpoint” or unique interaction with the brand. Their journey can be visualized by creating a customer journey map.
Data analytics
Data analytics is the study of data sets to identify patterns and draw conclusions. Data analysts apply the method to analyze the collected raw information to generate insights and trends.
Data intelligence
Data intelligence is part of big data and business intelligence. It’s about analyzing and transforming massive datasets into “intelligent” or practical and impactful insights through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. In turn, such data can help improve business products and services.
Digital transformation
Digital transformation is the adoption process made by companies to acquire new (or change current) digital technologies. The purpose of becoming digitally transformed is so that brands can improve business operations, culture, and customer experiences while meeting changing market demands or expectations.
Emotion analysis
Emotion analysis is the process of detecting and recognizing people’s emotions expressed in texts. Think, for instance, anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Nowadays, emotions analytics software has emerged to help collect such data to better understand the dynamic range of consumer behaviors.
Martech
Martech, also known as simply marketing technology, refers to a range of software and tools that support marketing goals and objectives. Such technological solutions primarily aim to help optimize digital marketing campaigns, and there are also very specialized Martech tools to help with other marketing-related efforts.
Natural language processing
Natural language processing (NLP) applies computational techniques to the analysis and synthesis of natural language and speech. It’s considered a branch of artificial intelligence and helps computers understand, interpret and manipulate human language.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is designed to capture customer loyalty. It is measured in surveys with a question similar to this: How likely are you to recommend the brand or service to others?
Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing primarily focuses on identifying ways to meet customers at the right time and deliver the right message. Its goal is to connect both the online and offline worlds to create a seamless (omnichannel) experience for buyers and sellers. And it is the connection of all customer journey touchpoints that result in a unified customer experience.
Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics is the process of leveraging historical data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning techniques to identify the probability of future events. With advancements in technology, predictive analytics does more than let businesses know what has happened; it also forecasts what might come. Thus, allowing organizations to be better prepared for the future.
Sentiment Analysis
As applied to understanding consumers, Sentiment analysis refers to the systematic process of identifying specific aspects related to a particular product or service feature, extracting them, quantifying them, and analyzing the data. The method uses natural language processing, text analysis, and computational linguistics.
Silos
In our context, we refer to silos as departmental systems with limited data sharing capabilities, making it difficult for information to be shared between departments.
Social listening
Social listening is the process of understanding the online conversation surrounding a brand, product, or service. It allows you to find out what your customers are saying, thinking, and feeling about your business through social media analytics tools.
Structured feedback
Structured feedback refers to when customer feedback is presented in a survey. The customer is given several questions and responds to them, allowing the data to seem more organized or “structured” in a sense.
Text Analytics
Text analytics (or even text mining) aims to uncover insights, patterns, and trends by automating the translation of large volumes of unstructured text into quantitative data. This methodology, coupled with data visualization tools, helps companies understand the story behind the numbers and improves decision-making.
Unstructured feedback
Unstructured feedback refers to customers leaving their opinions on blog posts, for instance, social media platforms, and wherever else your brand has not promoted for feedback.
Voice of the Customer (VoC)
The voice of the customer (often shortened to VoC) refers to what your customers have to say about their experiences and expectations with your products and services. An emphasis is placed on customer needs, expectations, and understandings. It can take many forms, such as written customer reviews.
Voice of the Customer Analytics
The voice of the customer (often shortened to VoC) refers to what your customers have to say about their experiences and expectations with your products and services. An emphasis is placed on customer needs, expectations, and understandings. It can take many forms, such as written customer reviews. Voice of the customer programs (VoC programs) are also in place, while rapidly involving alongside technology, to help companies make the best use out of their consumer feedback.
Wonderflow, the Voice of the Customer Software Leader
Want to know more about the VoC market or how our solution can improve CX? Consider speaking with one of our VoC experts!
