CX Made Easy: The Gartner® Voice of the Customer for Contact Center as a Service

Understanding the Gartner® Voice of the Customer for CCaaS 2024

The Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ is a Gartner research document that synthesizes Gartner Peer Insights’ content in a specific market for a specified 18-month period. This peer perspective along with the individual detailed reviews are complementary to expert research and was developed as an additional resource for end-users in their buying process.

Gartner defines a voice of the customer (VoC) platform as one that integrates feedback collection, analysis and action into a single interconnected platform that helps understand and improve the customer experience. Sources of feedback extend beyond direct surveying to include other, more indirect and inferred sources.

For a solution to be considered to be a VoC application, it must meet three criteria: Data collection — The ability to collect all three types of VoC data: a)Direct feedback b)Indirect feedback c)Inferred feedback. Analysis and insight — The ability to analyze and derive insight from a diverse set of structured and unstructured feedback datasets using a variety of visualization and analytical techniques. Action — The ability to act upon derived insights through the use of alerts, workflows, case assignment and recommendations.

Are these reports useful when deciding on a CX vendor? Undoubtedly. Only by understanding the experiences of decision makers in similar organizations to yours can you understand what a vendor is actually like to work with. So what sets the vendors apart?

The Steps to CX Excellence: The Consultative Approach

Customer Experience isn’t one-size-fits-all. Every organization has different needs, according to industry, scale, and objectives. Some organizations have regulatory obligations to meet; some want to be digital-focused; some want to unify a vast, global communications estate in the cloud. CX vendors, then, are problem solvers. They consult with customers first, in order to understand the challenges they face and craft a unique solution.

• An outstanding CX vendor will bring together experts from a host of different industries and backgrounds to inform their strategy. Their deployments will be led by industry veterans, who understand the needs of the sector intuitively.

• Next, the vendor should work to understand your business. This means talking to people at every level; from C-suite, to supervisor, to agent, in order to understand the challenges are every level. If the CX solution doesn’t work for everybody, it’s not going to help anybody.

• Finally, the vendor should put together an assessment in order to support key recommendations. Outstanding vendors prioritize value for customers, bringing together technologies from across the space, including AI-powered technologies, to solve customer problems.

Great vendors consult with their customers before they make a recommendation. But, advice can only take you so far. Your organization needs a CX solution that can solve the problems the vendor identified. That solution needs functional depth.

CX Excellence Through Functional Depth

All CX solutions are not created equal. Some prioritize speed of deployment and lowering costs and the expense of functionality and flexibility. A truly market-leading CX solution sets itself apart in three key ways:

• Reliability – When customer loyalty is on the line, you can’t afford to let a single interaction drop. Downtime can fatally damage your reputation with your customers; and if you have regulatory obligations to meet, it can lead to penalization. You need a CX solution that’s available around the clock, 24/7/365, with no risk of leaving customers in the lurch.

• Scalability – Customer contact volumes are rising, and expectations for great CX are rising with them. That means more customers, all expecting a higher quality of service. Your CX solution needs to be able to scale on demand, without becoming prohibitively costly, in order to delight every customer, every time.

• Functionality – The CX space moves fast. Whether it’s generative AI-powered efficiencies, or integrations with digitally-enabled devices, you need to keep up with your customers’ expectations. They are technologically-literate; there’s no excuse for you not to be.

Reliability, scalability, and functionality set the best CX vendors apart. To see what customers say about different vendors, download the Gartner® Voice of the Customer for CCaaS 2024 report here.