In an era where customer experience (CX) has reached a critical juncture, businesses are grappling with the challenge of translating customer feedback into tangible ROI. Ryan Tamminga, SVP of Product and Services at Alchemer and Alchemer Pulse, offers valuable insights into the current state of CX and how companies can leverage technology to bridge the gap between customer expectations and business outcomes.

In this exclusive Q&A with VMblog, Tamminga explores the reasons behind the all-time low in CX quality among U.S. brands, discusses the transformative potential of AI-powered text analysis, and shares real-world examples of how leading companies are turning customer feedback into actionable improvements. As businesses seek to navigate the complexities of modern customer relationships, Tamminga's perspective sheds light on innovative approaches to harness the voice of the customer and drive meaningful change.

VMblog:  What's the status of customer experience today?

Ryan Tamminga:  Customer experience is at an inflection point.

Most business people understand that improving the customer experience is the best thing to do for the business and your customers. But CX is struggling to help the business understand the financial impact of these actions. They know they should take CX actions - but many can't connect these actions to ROI. That provides a really unique opportunity for the evolution of CX.

The latest Forrester CX Index shows that CX quality among U.S. brands sits at an all-time low after declining for an unprecedented third year in a row. And they report that there is enough blame to go around, citing brands' inability to provide a seamless experience, out-of-touch digital experiences with chatbots, and consumer economic concerns all playing into the low CX rating.

With Accenture finding that 37% of people think companies are prioritizing higher profits over better customer experience, there's a lack of trust and a feeling that companies may not care about the customer experience.

But they should. McKinsey found that companies that care about customer experience tend to have 2X the growth of companies that don't. CX is clearly an area where businesses are struggling to meet consumer demands and it shows in every major and micro-transaction we have with brands today.

There is technology available to help at this particular inflection point. CX software needs to improve the experience while driving growth. We must help our customers achieve the results they want while adding to the bottom line.

VMblog:  It seems that many businesses are struggling to meet customer expectations. What are the issues?

Tamminga:  Businesses are struggling to meet customer expectations. There is frustration that businesses have asked for and received feedback about what they need to change - but the changes are coming at a slower pace than customers expect.

While there's a lot of energy behind CX initiatives to understand what we need to do - how and why we deploy it continues to be a challenge. So, the gap actually grows. Customers are telling you what they want, you say that you're listening - but because articulating how these actions positively impact the business, it can be challenging to get them done. (Or, sometimes worse, lightweight versions are deployed to underwhelming response.)

VMblog:  I've heard you say that by solving customer problems, you're solving business problems. Give me some examples.

Tamminga:  At Alchemer, we believe the voice of the customer should be your North Star. Everything your company does should have the customer at the center.

We have helped many companies engage with their customers and diagnose customer issues.

• We recently presented at Forrester CX NA with Cracker Barrel. They use Alchemer Digital to collect and respond to in-app and other digital feedback. If something breaks in the app, customers have a direct line with Product and UX teams to help ensure a fix. Solving customer issues in the app helps identify and then fix these problems before they become major challenges.
• Dunkin is another Alchemer Digital customer. They similarly use their feedback program to identify new opportunities within the app. For example, they learned through customer feedback that customers want to specify the amount of ice in their iced coffee. Product teams were able to quickly build this into the app and customer satisfaction went up. Again, by focusing on solving customer issues, Dunkin can identify challenges, showing real empathy to the customer.
• One bright spot in the recent Forrester CX Index was for airlines. Alchemer Digital customer JetBlue now regularly communicate with 25% of their app users, solving customer issues before they become full-blown problems. By showing this sense of empathy and using the feedback data provided, JetBlue continues to be ahead of the pack when it comes to CX.

VMblog:  How can companies get past the overwhelming noise of feedback into information they can use?

Tamminga:  Open text feedback, collected in Alchemer surveys or in public view like reviews or social media comments, is full of valuable insights. But the sorting, tagging, and analysis are obstacles to understanding that feedback, and to making it valuable to your business.

In short, the manual review of large volumes of open text feedback was too resource-heavy to be scalable - too much unstructured information for a business to really get their heads around. Until now.

We created Alchemer Pulse to help customer experience and other feedback programs act on unstructured feedback at scale. Our AI-powered text analysis brings together all open text to understand how your customers really think and feel - in their own words. It turns qualitative feedback data into trackable, actionable insights with summaries of themes and sentiment. And it empowers feedback teams to analyze and act on text feedback faster than ever, at unheard-of scale, so you can track your impact on the business.

People can convey their thoughts and emotions in open text in a way that's different than what structured surveys can do. Being able to understand that at scale gives you insight into all of the things that are important to your customer and why.

VMblog:  How will text analysis help companies change their feedback strategy?

Tamminga:  Text analysis will have customer experience teams and those who run feedback programs re-thinking their entire strategy.

Without text analysis, feedback tends to come in quantifiable buckets thanks to check boxes or radio buttons. But that natural classification introduces bias into your surveys and sometimes does not get at the root of customer problems. This "top-down" approach isn't working.

Text analysis transforms qualitative feedback data into quantifiable, actionable data. Now, instead of guessing and possibly being wrong, you can just ask and get the right insights. This "bottom-up" approach is going to become more popular because AI-powered text analysis enables teams to parse the data, automatically gauge theme and sentiment, and then take action on segments of customer problems. It enables feedback teams to be the tip of the spear when it comes to understanding and fixing customer problems.

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