2015 will be an important year for the deployment of customer survey software in the contact center.
My grandmother had two favorite TV shows. One was “Dialing for Dollars” and the other was a game show called “Family Feud.” Those of you who are musically inclined or interested in rock ’n’ roll music history may recognize the phrase “Dialing for Dollars.” It was mentioned in Janis Joplin’s song “Mercedes Benz,” released post-humously in 1971. In the song, Janis sings:
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV?
Dialing for Dollars is trying to find me.
I wait for delivery each day until three,
So oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV?
That’s right kids; there was a time when not everyone had a color TV. Apparently Janis didn’t have one either. Perhaps she checked out before she could get hers. Janis is a member of rock ’n’ roll’s infamous “27 Club” along with such other members as Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and many more. All of these musicians died at age 27.
“Dialing for Dollars” was a show that came on one of the four San Francisco broadcast TV stations each weekday at 1 p.m. and lasted two hours, which is why Janis waited for delivery each day until three. Broadcast through most of the 1970s, “Dialing for Dollars” showed a different movie each day and, during commercial breaks, the host would pick a random number from a local phone book and call it. If the called party was home, was watching the movie and could tell the host the amount in the kitty, he or she would win. My grandmother tuned in to “Dialing for Dollars” faithfully almost every day hoping to hit the jackpot. She never got the call. I guess Dialing for Dollars wasn’t trying to find her.
Her other favorite show, “Family Feud,” ran from 1976-1985 and was hosted by Richard Dawson. Richard Dawson was a Brit who wore suits with bell-bottom pants and kissed all the ladies on the show as part of his contestant introduction shtick. He had a sort-of cockney accent that I think appealed to my grandmother, who had a bit of an accent herself. She was born in 1906 into a working-class family along with 17 brothers and sisters in Oxford, England.
The contestants on “Family Feud” were always members of two opposing families. The contestants were read a question that had been answered by a survey of 100 people who were never identified. The most popular answers to the survey questions were hidden on a board above the players and each family team sent a representative for the first round, called the “Lightening Round.” The winner of the first round got to play the next round of the game with his or her family members, guessing what the most popular survey answers to a particular question were.
Every time a contestant took a guess at an answer, Richard Dawson would point up at the answer board and, in a loud voice, announce his catch phrase, “Our survey says!” This ritual would happen every time a contestant took a guess at a survey answer and by the time the show ended in 1985, the catch phrase, “Our survey says!” provided Richard Dawson with a very comfortable retirement.
I think “Our survey says!” might be a good catch phrase for the contact center industry in 2015. Regular readers will know that each year my company, Saddletree Research, conducts a survey of end-users in conjunction with the National Association of Call Centers (NACC) at the University of Southern Mississippi. Although the survey has not yet been concluded, I can’t help peeking at the preliminary results every now and then to see how the industry might be changing compared to last year. One thing these preliminary results have shown is that there is strong and growing interest in customer surveys among customer service professionals this year.
Each year, we ask our survey respondents which technology solutions they will be evaluating for purchase or have funded for purchase in the year ahead. Our preliminary results show customer surveys ascending to the top of the list of solutions that will be acquired in 2015. So far, 33% of our respondents have indicated their intention to acquire customer survey software in 2015. An additional 7% of respondents already have customer survey software, but intend to upgrade it this year.
Another interesting market shift this year has to do with voice of the customer (VoC) programs. While there was fledgling interest in VoC programs at the beginning of 2014, our preliminary 2015 results show 36% of respondents now have a formal VoC program in their contact center. Our survey asked those with a formal VoC program which touchpoints they leverage to measure the success of their VoC program and the No. 1 answer so far, specified by 61% of respondents, was customer survey software.
It looks like 2015 is going to be an important year for the deployment of customer survey software in the contact center. If, while evaluating your contact center’s customer survey software responses this year, you get the urge to shout out, “Our survey says!” at any time, do it. Then do as I do and take a moment to reflect on the genius of Richard Dawson.