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Achieving ROI From a VOC Program

Project Overview

 

The ultimate goals of any VOC program are (1) to improve customer sentiment and customer experience and (2) to improve business results. The key to achieving those two goals is in the ability of the organization not only to listen to customer feedback but also to act on it. The action aspect is dependent on the ability to figure out the root causes of customer sentiment (what customer feel) and the ability to tie what customers said in their feedback comments to what they did during their interaction with the product or service.

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This project describes how at Zappos, we closed the feedback loop and acted on customer feedback to improve customer experience and achieve an ROI to the tune of millions of dollars a week.

 

Objectives

 

  1. Identify Opportunities for CX Improvements Using The Triage Method:

    • On a weekly basis identify and flag new and urgent issues which cause drops in key business metrics

    • On a quarterly basis identify and flag persistent or chronic CX issues which need further investigation

  2. Uncover The Root Causes of The Issues:

    • Route different CX issues to different cross-functional CX teams responsible for the specific area of the customer journey affected by the issue

    • Work with the team to figure out what happened during the customer session that led tot he issue and to the negative customer sentiment

  3. Size The Business Opportunity From Fixing The Issue:

    • Work with the team to calculate the business upside from fixing the issue: how many customers are experiencing the issue, what is the impact on conversion, sales, visits, and other key KPIs?

 

Implementation

 

  1. Data Collection: 

    • We ensured that we had a consistent and contextual way of collecting customer feedback for the key areas of the online retail customer experience, e.g., Search, Product Details Page, Checkout, Purchase Confirmation

    • A key prerequisite for the success of this ROI project was the implementation of a way to tie customer feedback to the actual customer session when the feedback was provided.  That was done using a session ID collected and stored in a secure way behind our firewall.

  2. Data Storage:

    • The project involved the creation of an internal (home grown) platform for data collection and storage.  It included a database which connected customer feedback, the text analysis of that feedback by a third-party service, and the session events data associated with the customer feedback

    • That platform was essential in closing the loop, identifying the root cause of customer sentiment, pinpointing the specific areas for improvement, and quantifying the potential impact of such an improvement.

  3. Data Analysis:

    • The initial text analysis of the customer comments was done in partnership with a third-party AI tool called Chattermill.  The Chattermill NLP engine tagged each comment with either positive, negative, or neutral sentiment, and assigned it to a business area category, e.g. Online Experience - Checkout (see example dashboards).

    • Since the Checkout step of the customer purchase journey for an online retailer is critical to the business bottom line, customers comments like "I cannot check out" were taken seriously and flagged for further root cause analysis

    • Next, a member of the Checkout team looked at several events logs for similar comments and identified a group of error messages which were generated by the system.

    • Next, the Analytics team did a quick analysis to discover that those error messages were popping up over 1000 time per day. This made the CX issue material and worthy of action.

    • Next, the Analytics team calculated the loss of revenue due to those errors based on the value of "abandoned carts" for customers who experiences the error compared to a control group of customers who did not experience the error.  The opportunity of fixing those issues was calculated to be as high as $1.4M a week!

    • Finally, engineers on the team isolated one of the issues and traced it to a design decision back in the day to put a character limit on an address input form, which prevented customers with longer addresses from completing their purchases. Since, in theory, the input form "worked as designed", the issue had remained hidden for a long time before it was discovered through the VOC feedback process.

    • Based on the series of initial use cases, which were investigated manually by combing through the events logs, leadership invested in onboarding a third-party session replay tool (ContentSquare) to automate and scale the issue qualification and valuation process.

  4. Acting On The Insights:

    • Based on the rigorous process of CX issue discovery, root cause analysis, and sizing, which was enables by the VOC program, the UX Design and Engineering teams redesigned the Checkout forms and flow to improve customer experience and close the gaps, thus achieving a significant ROI.

 

Key Initiatives and Results
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  1. Checkout Experience Improvements:

    • Specific feedback was gathered during the checkout process, leading to a significant increase in customer satisfaction (over 85% NPS) and prevention of loss of revenue

  2. Search Enhancements:

    • VOC comments led to the development of features like single-click gendered sizing and improved arch support search filters

  3. Product Details Page Improvements:

    • Improving the usability of selecting available product sizes​

  4. Continuous Feedback Integration:

    • Regular reports from VOC enabled key stakeholders to participate in an insights-informed decision processes

 

Outcomes and Impact

 

  1. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction:

    • Direct incorporation of customer feedback into business processes led to measurable improvements in customer satisfaction and the addition of millions of dollars to the bottom line.

  2. Operational Efficiency:

    • Streamlined processes for capturing and analyzing feedback reduced the time and effort required to implement changes

  3. Business Growth:

    • The continuous improvement of CX, driven by VOC insights, contributed to the overall growth and success of Zappos' e-commerce platform

 

Conclusion

 

The Voice of the Customer program, founded and spearheaded by Alex Genov, exemplifies a strategic initiative that successfully transformed customer feedback into actionable insights, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and customer-centric innovation at Zappos.

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