The difficult economy and customer behaviour

How is your customer behaving these days? The average customer is restless during times of economic comfort. So what does the opposite end of the economic curve mean to customers?

1. Price becomes more important among differentiators

In a mathematical model, if you attach a weight to each of the metrics that influence customers taking to your product, price would obviously be among the top few. This weight would definitely have increased, especially over the last few months. Conscious purchases would increase as opposed to periodic automatic purchases.

2. Advertisement becomes all the more important

The average customer would definitely spend more time doing research on the product. So, getting the word out that your product is more economically viable, becomes most important.

3. A field of opportunity

These times are the best times for any enterprise to show that they care about their customers. Small measures, such as delaying payment due dates, could greatly influence customer loyalty and churn.

4. It starts as slight pitter-patter on a tin roof

Customer behavior shifts ever so slightly before the deluge. The number of people opting to cook at home was at 74% last October, which increased to 76% last January, and has drastically increased to 84% by April. Identifying slight changes in choice shifts requires an analysis platform to understand what numbers could be used as touch points.
Also, buying patterns would vary drastically and would not be as obvious during better times. The nuggets of information would be in the details and might not jump out at you easily. This further highlights the need for detailed analysis.

Now what would companies need to do ensure that they stay on top of the curve?

• Create an analytics platform to identify small shifts in customer behavior.
  
• Concentrate on customer satisfaction. A dissatisfied customer is more likely to discontinue service during such times. Retention becomes more important because getting a new customer becomes all the more expensive.
  
• Pricing trends based on local competition, while customers are busy shifting to cheaper, local vendors.
  

A First Look at some Analytics Vendors

Avoke	1. Caller Experience Dashboards 2. Analysis Workbench 3. Drill Down & Listen	1. Completion rates, Transfer Rate 2. Cross mapping high level parameters without understanding pain points 3. Shortlist calls to listen and troubleshoot IVR issues
Chrysalis	1. Agent Productivity Tools 2. IVR Hardware Monitoring	1. Tools that supervisors could use to monitor individual agent performance 2. Port utilization metrics / Connection status
Clickfox	1. Traffic Analysis, IVR Path Analysis 2. Crosschannel Analytics	1. Detailed granular data of path completions, failure points and caller interactions 2. Integration of caller interactions among multiple channels
Contact solutions	1. Application Reporting 2. Analyze high level metrics	1. Lists of called numbers, calling numbers, Duration, Timings 2. To reduce live agent traffic, improve agent routing
Eloyalty	1. Cross-channel analytics 2. Trend and pattern analysis based on prior experience	1. Collects data from every possible customer interaction method 2. Provides recommendations based on reducing customer discontinuity
Metrica	1. Detailed IVR customer behavior analysis 2. Troubleshooting IVR performance	1. Analytics through multiple channels. IVR, Contact Center and Website 2. IVR path analysis, Clustering and Prediction of customer behavior
Micro Automation	1. Self Service Analytics 2. Call Control Analytics	1. Reporting tool that gives caller choices and success rates without going into whys 2. Agent availability and call duration in real time
Nuance	1. Voice input recognition programming 2. Modules that ease customer interaction	1. Facilitator for voice recognition systems used within IVRs 2. Efficiency measurement of free style customer interaction
TuVox	1. Self Service Module creation 2. Speech applications for voice recognition	1. Industry specific voice recognition systems and self service modules 2. Call routing technology to plan IVR navigation
Voice Objects	1. Real Time Analytics 2. Interface with other BI tools	1. Real-time analysis enabled without requiring additional load or transformation steps and changes automatically reflected 2. High level metrics such as Repeat calls and completion rates
Voxify	1. IVR modeling tools 2. Big picture metrics of IVR utilization	1. Individual self service modules for each application or 'menu' 2. Call completion rates, call timings and day by day call volume trends

We would like to hear about people's experiences with these products, the benefits they derived, and where the products need improvement.