What is a Listening Post?

Within the world of customer experience management, a listening post is a point in the process where companies can collect and analyze feedback from their customers. Organizations tend to assume they understand what their customers want and need. Listening posts are a way to confirm or disprove that assumption by hearing feedback straight from the source. Getting direct input from customers through listening posts can give organizations insight into areas such as product issues, barriers to making purchases, and overall customer satisfaction. The ultimate goal is to use the listening post feedback to enhance the customer experience.

Listening posts are a collection of tools and methods many companies already use to collect customer feedback. Some listening posts happen organically, but many are deliberately created by organizations. Social media is probably the best example of an organic listening post because customers will freely share their opinions without prompting from the business. Companies need a good way to collect, consolidate and analyze such feedback. If they want more structured listening posts, organizations will use tools like customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys, Net Promoter® surveys, and focus groups.

Listening posts and contact centers

Contact centers make rich listening posts because they communicate with customers every day. The place to start is with agents, who can summarize what common themes customers talk to them about. That information can be supplemented by AI-driven interaction analytics. This technology can summarize call reasons and customer emotions based on what was said during the interaction. Another powerful tool is the automated administration of surveys, which enables surveys to be presented to customers immediately following an interaction. Analytics tools can quickly calculate survey results and present them in insightful formats.

Listening posts are invaluable for understanding what customers truly think and feel. Organizations that collect and assess customer feedback are better positioned to improve their customer journey.