Segmentation, you may know means grouping of people. Psychographic segmentation likewise means a grouping of people based on the psychological traits that influence their consumption habits. Market research tools can allow analysts to conduct this form of segmentation easily. The segments of customers or consumers are based on their: social class, lifestyle, personality, interests, and so on.Psychographic data can help you give your business a customer-centric image that is relevant for a brand in the market.Psychographic data can be considered the last piece to complete the set of a holistic view of customer’s purchase or consumption behavior. It is conducted by understanding “How” people think about your service and “What” they should buy to reach the “Why” the customer should appreciate your products/service. The psychographic survey takes into consideration the psychological journey of the customer.To measure and predict these patterns the researchers fulfill some basic criteria such as:

• What is the motivation behind customer’s thoughts?
• What are the principles they follow?
• What in fluencies them to make a decision?

Understanding customer’s demands and expectations play a major role in the marketing strategy. As a result, the data can be used as guidance to provide the market with products that are customer-oriented.Therefore, the belief of psychometric segmentation is that understanding the customers would help them to understand your brand.For example, if a Chinese restaurant wants to open a branch they will have to take into consideration several factors. They need to conduct market research to consider the area with a better social circle, the food habit of the neighborhood people, and many more factors. They will put out a survey with questions beneficial for their strategy and then decide their business plan.

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Collection of Psychometric Segmentation Data

Psychometric data is challenging to collect because people are not always willing to tell you everything you want for research purposes. Moreover, you need to dig beyond the obvious data and read between the lines. You need deep insight to understand the psychological functioning of your customers.There are several ways you can collect these data, some are listed below.Survey:

• This is the most common method used by all companies or organizations to understand their consumers. 
• Open-ended questions help in surveys the most as they let customers answer freely. You can use these responses to group your customers and then take action on the suggestions. You can also use a Likert scale to gain data on your customer’s experience. Or, a Semantic differential scale to understand how your customers feel about certain services or concepts.

Third-PartyThis method is quite tricky and may turn out expensive. Third-party implies that you take help from market research companies that can provide you customer data for your market. You can then use the information you require. There are two ways this method functions: focus group and customer interviews.

• • Focus Group: This includes a wide range of responses because the target of this survey consists of people from different backgrounds. The idea behind the focus group is that once a customer responds well to the object/service, they bring in more people with a similar choice.
  • Customer Interviews: These are discussions conducted with customers to collect relevant data based on their opinions. This helps create a balance because it gives you a picture of what right or wrong you are doing in your business.

Cookies

•  Many websites use cookies to track a customer’s journey online. When a customer agrees to the cookie on a website it means they are giving permission to the website to access your personal information. A company can collect psychographic data by tracking the user’s journey and activity on social media, websites, online purchases, and other online platforms. 
• The digital data obtained by this method gives a complete picture of the customer; who they are, what they do online, how much time they spent, their reviews, why they spent time online. This information helps a company build its online presence attractive enough to keep its customers visiting daily.

Variables of Psychometric Segmentation

Exploratory Research Guide

Conducting exploratory research seems tricky but an effective guide can help.Download NowCustomers have a special need and expectation from brands and these demands are based on a certain factor which affects their life. Companies use these factors to promote and capture the attention of their customers in the market. The following are the variables used for marketing strategies.Personality:

• Customer personality is believed to be strongly related to their purchase habit. Products and services can be catered to various personalities. Also, different concepts and surveys can be used to analyze different personalities. 
• For instance, Mirror in 2018 began selling itself as an interactive home trainer. The workshop for the product advertised towards people with the personality of workout-lovers. The customers who can’t find time to go to the gym responded to this business strategy.

Lifestyle:

• Understanding the kind of lifestyle your customers have from their social media activity or keeping track of the trends can help you create a strategy to attract your customers. Such development of products is more successful because they are created based on customer’s lifestyles.
• For example, the “Yuppie Handbook” of the 80s was targeted towards young, urban, and working-class professionals who earned enough to spend on fashion over utility. 

Social Status:

• Social status which is based on the income of one person often is the determining factor of their purchase behavior. Each social class has its choice of brands that they can afford. 
• For example, a brand can aim for rich, upper-class people because their brand has a clear idea of who can afford them. High quality and high price become their brand image, with their audience being upper-class.

Interests:

• The market observes the activities and interests enjoyed by the customers to create customer-centric products or services. Their opinions about a concept are factors that the companies or organization build their marketing strategies around.
• For instance, digital communities are one such example of an interest group. You can find many sites dedicated to particular interests or activities focusing on customers who enjoy such options. You can find websites with movies, music videos, channels with video games, etc. all such websites target audiences who share the same interests.

Values:

• Value is one such segment that catches the attention of the customers. You can track the values of your customers based on the data you have collected about their lifestyles, interest, social class, etc. 
• More and more companies are targeting values related to the environment. Sustainable fashion, furniture, architecture are some examples that are now being advertised as a marketing strategy.

Examples of Psychographic Segmentation

Starbucks Starbucks uses psychographic segmentation while conducting market research as you can see the range of products they sell.For examples,

• Frappuccinos and Sandwiches are catered for those who can’t drink coffee but can spend their time socializing in their stores. 
• Top-quality beans to brew coffee for those customers who like their coffee of premium quality and have a high income. 

Starbucks advertises and appeals to their customers with a high success rate because they use psychographic segmentation.Foot Locker

• Foot Locker uses the psychographic segment of Authority to track and appeal to its customers. The product badges of Foot Lockers are a stamp of approval that drives customer’s purchase behavior. 
• They can use this behavior pattern of their customer who responds to Authority and implement it on their business strategy.

See Voxco survey software in action with a Free demo.Book a Free Demo

See Voxco survey software in action with a Free demo.

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Advantages of Psychographic Segmentation

• This market research tool can help you understand the psychological working of the customer’s behavior.
• Segmentation depending on psychographic factors can help customize your business service and products.
• The detailed insights from psychographic segmentation along with geographic and demographical segmentation give you a vividly clear picture of the customer’s attitude.

A customer experience survey enables a brand to gather a customer’s perceptions based on the experiences across various touch points. To determine the crucial touch points of the customers, it's imperative for businesses to map their journey. Leveraging an entire customer experience management is essential for this.For instance, you need to track the experience of your customers from the time when they considered your brand (for the first time) to when they become repeat customers. In this scenario, you must keep a check on what customers are saying about your brand at every level. By using a best-in-class customer experience survey, you can effectively measure customer experience as well as satisfaction across different touch points of their journey.

Why are Customer Experience Surveys important for your business?

Being a crucial component for understanding what customers think about a brand, a customer experience survey empowers businesses to gain actionable insights into the overall customer journey as well as customer support. Here are some reasons why you should use customer experience surveys:

• Boosts customer retentionA customer will return to your brand only if he/she is happy and satisfied. By allowing you to effectively track the customer journey, a CX survey lets you anticipate if your product or service is performing well or not. It also helps you forecast future sales on the basis of customer loyalty. A CX survey highlights the required changes that need to be immediately incorporated for retaining customers.
• Discover your promotersA customer experience survey is an ideal method to determine the promoters or advocates for your brand. Leveraging a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey can help you categorize your customers as promoters, detractors, or passives. Moreover, this information can be used for sending targeted and personalized messages, thereby transforming detractors into promoters.
• Solicit feedback for making informed decisions Data is certainly the most important factor for making decisions in the best interest of a business. With a customer experience survey, businesses can gather insightful data that helps them to function smoothly and uncover the likes and dislikes of their customers.

What are the types of Customer Experience Surveys?

There are multiple surveys or metrics that you can use for tracking your CX. Based on the touch point in question and your specific requirements, you can pick up the right customer experience survey to measure your CX. Here are some CX surveys that you should consider:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) SurveyNet Promoter Score Survey (NPS Survey) is used by brands to measure customer loyalty as well as brand advocacy. With an aim to predict the growth trajectory of a brand, this survey asks the respondent a simple question:

“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service/brand to a friend or colleague?”After the respondents choose a score, they're asked another question: “Why did you give us that score?” This is an open-ended question that propels the customers to give their feedback in detail. This follow-up question can help you gain insights into the customer pain points. Based on the score given by respondents, they're classified as: Promoters (rating of 9 or 10), Detractors (rating between 0 to 6), and Passives (rating between 7 or 8).

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) SurveyCustomer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys are used by brands to determine the level of customer satisfaction with their products or services. Being an excellent indicator of critical aspects related to CX, a CSAT survey helps to track how customers feel about the quality as well as the effectiveness of a brand & its products or services. In this survey, customers are asked the following question: 

“On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate your overall satisfaction with our product?”

• Customer Effort Score (CES) SurveyCustomer Effort Score (CES) surveys are used by businesses to understand how much effort does a customer had to put in specific touch points or interactions with them. This helps to determine if the customers are really happy or sad with a brand. These surveys are mostly dispatched after a customer has interacted with a brand's customer service. It involves asking customers one question:

"Please rate how easy or difficult was it for you to find a relevant solution to your problem on our website?"

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Making the most of your Customer Experience Surveys

• Set your goals right Start by defining your goals, i.e. what do you want from this CX survey, how will it add value to your brand? This benchmark will prevent you from losing sight of your survey’s purpose while helping you visualize the results too. Without analyzing your objectives, you might get data from the survey but not the required insights you need!
• Choose an efficient CX survey softwareTo effectively evaluate your customer journey, it's important to choose the right software for your customer experience survey. A robust CX survey software not only helps you to elevate your customer experience but also empowers your brand to stay ahead of the competitors. Voxco offers best-in-class customer experience surveys for fostering closer ties with your customers.
• Pick the right survey templateFinding it difficult to design your CX survey from scratch? Look no further than a survey template! While a survey template is a great source to create a customer experience survey for your brand, it also comes with the added benefit of customization. So you can easily customize it according to your brand logo and color code!
• Use the right question typeAs respondents are going to interact with your brand through a CX survey, it’s essential to include questions that provide the best information. While you can use any question type (dichotomous (yes/no), rank order, slider, matrix table, multiple-choice), it's recommended to use open-ended questions as they help to gather more actionable and insightful information. Also, you should avoid using questions that are biased or misleading as these undermine the validity of the results.
• Test your CX survey Before you begin with distribution, you should always test your CX survey to discover the loose ends. Getting feedback from a group of testers can help you realize the areas of improvement and make required revisions. Moreover, it helps you acknowledge the chances where customers might misinterpret the questions.

What to look for in a customer experience survey software?

While choosing a customer experience survey software, it's important to consider one that can transform your organization's growth by seamlessly tracking & optimizing customer journeys. Here are a few things to consider while selecting the software for your CX survey:

• Omni channel CapabilitiesThere's no doubt that it's a technology-driven world where most individuals are online, not everyone has access to the internet 24x7. This is why it's essential for your customer experience survey software to help you reach respondents across all channels (Online, face-to-face, telephonically). This ensures to gather more accurate data by allowing brands to break down geographical barriers while surveying their respondents. Voxco’s omnichannel CX surveys help you gather the feedback you need anywhere, anytime.
• Powerful dashboards and analytics Gathering data is a crucial aspect of CX, but for insights, your customer experience survey software needs to be equipped with robust analytics tools. Voxco enables brands to intuitively view their data through customizable dashboards and identify the key trends in customer behavior. Not everyone in your company needs access to all the data collected through your CX survey. With Voxco, you can effortlessly control information access while ensuring that the right data is available to the key stakeholders. 
• Seamless App Integration For businesses having a large volume of app users, this feature is a must. By integrating customer experience surveys like NPS, CSAT, or CES into your application, you can understand customer pain points by soliciting feedback immediately after important interactions. Voxco’s best-in-class CX survey software allows for easy integration into your app, helping you to get customer feedback within no time. This, in turn, boosts the overall customer experience.
• Flexible Hosting Options Customer data is certainly the key contributor to business success. This extends to the feedback data collected via customer experience surveys as well. With exceptional survey tools like Voxco, it gets easy to store your customer feedback data securely on the cloud or your own premises, as it's compatible with the security protocols of your business!

In market research, numbers alone don’t tell the full story. To truly understand people’s motivations, emotions, and behaviors, you need to go deeper. That’s where qualitative data comes in.

In this guide, we’ll explore what qualitative data is, why it matters, how to collect it, and the best ways to organize and analyze it.

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What is Qualitative Data?

Qualitative data describes characteristics or qualities that can't easily be measured with numbers.
Instead, it captures open-ended information like opinions, experiences, emotions, and behaviors — typically organized into categories based on attributes or labels rather than numerical values.

Researchers gather qualitative data through interviews, open-ended survey questions, focus groups, observations, and case studies. Unlike quantitative data, which focuses on “how much” or “how many,” qualitative data focuses on “what” and “why.”

Example:

During a performance review, if a manager provides detailed feedback based on an employee’s project work and behavior — without assigning a numeric rating — that feedback represents qualitative data.

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Why Does Qualitative Data Matter?

Qualitative data plays a vital role in market research because it:

• Reveals deeper insights into customer motivations, frustrations, and decision-making processes.
  
  
• Captures nuances that numbers alone often miss, helping brands see the full context behind customer behavior.
  
  
• Guides future strategy by identifying not just what customers do, but why they do it.
  
  

Understanding the “why” behind customer choices is essential for creating better products, experiences, and relationships.

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How to Collect Qualitative Data

Researchers use several trusted methods to gather qualitative data:

1. Individual Interviews

One-on-one interviews allow researchers to dive deeply into a respondent’s experiences and opinions. They’re typically conversational, open-ended, and flexible — allowing new topics to surface naturally during the discussion.

Tip: Asking neutral, open-ended questions helps respondents share richer, more candid insights.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups bring together a small group (typically 5–10 people) to discuss a particular topic. A trained moderator guides the conversation, uncovering common themes and varying perspectives. This method is ideal for observing group dynamics and exploring different angles of an issue.

3. Case Studies

By analyzing specific examples in detail, researchers can gain deep insight into how and why certain outcomes occurred. Case studies are especially useful for exploring complex subjects in fields like healthcare, social sciences, or business.

4. Observation

Observational research involves watching participants in their natural environment without direct interference. It helps capture authentic behavior — especially actions that respondents might not think to mention during interviews or surveys.

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How to Organize and Analyze Qualitative Data

Raw qualitative data is often unstructured. To turn it into meaningful insights, researchers follow a few key steps:

1. Arrange the Data: First, transcribe interviews, organize notes, and convert information into a workable format (such as spreadsheets).

2. Organize by Themes: Group the data according to research questions or emerging themes. Creating tables or frameworks helps make connections clearer.

3. Code the Data: Assign codes to recurring ideas or patterns. Coding helps categorize information and makes analysis more efficient.

4. Validate and Summarize: Review the data carefully for accuracy. Validation ensures findings are credible.
   Finally, create a clear, concise summary report that captures key insights and next steps.

Researchers looking to streamline open-end analysis are increasingly turning to AI tools — see how in Becoming a Quallie: From Factor Analysis to AI Qualitative Coding.

Advantages of Qualitative Data

• Deeper understanding of attitudes:
  Qualitative data helps track shifts in customer perceptions, offering insight into why attitudes change over time.
• Rich, detailed information:
  Where quantitative data often hits limits, qualitative responses provide context, nuance, and deeper meaning.
• Authentic expression:
  Open-ended responses let participants share freely, often surfacing insights researchers might not have anticipated.

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Disadvantages of Qualitative Data

• Time-intensive:
  Collecting, transcribing, and analyzing qualitative data takes significantly more time than processing quantitative responses.
• Difficult to generalize:
  Because qualitative research often involves smaller samples, findings may not represent the broader population.
• Potential for bias:
  Subjective interpretations — both from respondents and researchers — can introduce bias if not carefully managed.
• Reliability concerns:
  Because people's opinions and behaviors change, qualitative findings may only reflect a snapshot in time.

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Final Thoughts

Qualitative data is an essential piece of any strong market research strategy. While it doesn’t offer the simplicity of hard numbers, it provides something even more powerful: the context, depth, and meaning behind customer decisions. When used alongside quantitative research, qualitative data helps brands move beyond surface-level metrics and truly understand the people they serve.

Our Ascribe by Voxco tools surface hidden themes and trends automatically — bringing clarity to even the largest datasets in minutes, not days. Want to see how we could change the way you handle open-ends? Let’s connect. Book a demo now. 

Customer retention can be a tough ask for many businesses, but with the right tools, it is a challenge that companies with high NPS® have overcome. It’s an essential attribute for businesses looking to grow because acquiring new customers is only one part of a sustainable growth strategy.

Retaining consumers is far cheaper than acquiring new ones, and NPS® surveys are an effective tool to measure customer loyalty and give you insights into customer retention for your brand.

Yes, you may feel that you’re delivering excellent services and good value to your customers, but they may not feel the same way. Your intent does not always match customers’ experiences, and NPS® is a good way to find out just where you’re going wrong (or right!).

Which are the companies with high NPS® scores?

Companies like Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Tesla have maintained consistently high NPS® for a while now and have built up their brand into the behemoths they are today. What is it that they’re doing that makes their customers unwilling to switch to other brands?

Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Lexus, and Tesla are a few companies with high NPS®. All these businesses are in industries known for finicky customers, making their scores even more impressive. Keep in mind that the average Net Promoter Score® varies by industry. A 40 may hold more value in one vertical than a 60 does in another.

What do good NPS® scores mean for a business? A high Net Promoter Score® usually means that customers (respondents) are happy with your brand and would like to continue with your products or services.

Related read: Guide on NPS

What do these companies with high NPS® have in common?

A good product or service can be judged by several parameters, but to inspire customer loyalty there are certain attributes which a business must strive to imbibe in itself.

Companies with high NPS® usually have some, if not all of the following attributes:

• Quality services and fast delivery.
• Customer service leaders.
• Innovation.
• Reliability and accountability.
• Simple, easy to get to grips with.
• Personalized services

1. Quality services, fast delivery

Netflix, Amazon, et al. pride themselves on speed. It could be getting you instant access to a show you want or getting you that PlayStation 5 the very next day after ordering. Essentially, any interaction you have with their brand needs to be effortless.

This can be achieved by collecting feedback across multiple touch points along a typical customer journey with your brand and leveraging the insights one glean from this feedback to develop better services.

Netflix exemplifies this attribute: You can use a single Netflix account across all your devices, with upto 4 people watching different content simultaneously. This simple attribute makes it extremely easy for customers to refer Netflix to their friends or family, contributing to high NPS® scores.

Voxco survey software provides an omnichannel platform to conduct customer feedback surveys across phone, mobile, web, and offline channels. With a demo, discover how you can replicate CX leader’s customer experience strategies.

2. Customer service leaders

NPS® leaders provide exemplary customer service. Apple, Amazon, and Lexus leave no stone unturned to ensure that their customers feel like they are a priority. Moreover, their support is available across channels, which allows them to respond to customer concerns as quickly as possible.

Businesses that employ an omnichannel approach for customer interaction display 91% greater customer retention rates compared to businesses that don’t.

Amazon employs large numbers of customer representatives across the globe to ensure that they are equipped to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction. (Conduct your customer satisfaction research with our customer satisfaction survey template)

Netflix takes a more “human” approach to their customer experience, with live reps available to solve their customer service issues.

Having reps available on social media, chatbots, telephone, in person or via email are indicators of companies with high NPS®, and an omnichannel approach is excellent for getting accurate feedback to help drive growth.

Check our Voxco’s omnichannel survey platform. Try a free demo.

3. Innovation

These companies may not have reinvented the wheel, but they did innovate in ways that made the customers’ life easier in ways they could never have anticipated.

Having an all-touch phone without a stylus seemed like a crazy idea back in 2007, but it worked, and the world of smartphones hasn’t been the same since the iPhone. Electric cars aren't a new concept, but Tesla made them daily drivable and via their supercharger network – Dependable. Amazon, Netflix, and Airbnb – all of them offer unique value propositions to the customer, which helps them achieve high NPS® scores.

4. Reliability and Accountability

Customers like to know that they can depend on your brand. Most of us have used Amazon’s refund and return facilities. They’re seamless, and Amazon rarely kicks up a fuss when it comes to acknowledging that there was an issue with the delivery.

Netflix’s servers are incredibly well sorted, with minimal downtime – when you want to get home after a long day at work and resume the episode of Daredevil you’d started watching previously, you know it’ll be there, at the exact same spot you left it.

When consumers know that they can depend on your services and your incident resolution mechanisms, they tend to remain loyal to your brand.

5. Simple, easy to get to grips with

Simplicity sells – Apple is a testament to that. As is Netflix and Spotify. Apple fans can never stop talking about how “easy” or “convenient” it is to use their devices and services.

Simple products and services are extremely easy to recommend and is an attribute that most companies with high NPS® have.

6. Personalized services

An increasingly digital world has made it possible to personalize even the most granular attributes of a product or service, including overall customer experience. Personally relevant content from brands tends to get a better response from customers, as 78% of consumers claim that personally relevant content increases purchase intent. It helps customers feel that they’re receiving an individualized customer experience.

Companies with high NPS® scores typically have better customer retention

Let’s look at three industry leaders to understand how they not only became the companies with the highest NPS scores but also created a highly loyal customer base.

01. Apple: NPS score 72

The world’s most valuable company for a reason. Apple’s focus on perfection permeates all aspects of its organization. From products to customer service to events – everything has to work without a hitch.

This shows in Apple’s customer retention.

Seemingly anti-consumer decisions like removing the 3.5mm jack or shipping their phones without a charger included in the box have done little to sway their customers away from the brand. Their products have become more expensive, but that’s had a negligible impact on their sales figures.

Apple’s NPS® scores remain consistently high with respect to the industry they operate in, and its loyalists ensure that Apple has a stable base from which it can target new challenges.

02. Amazon: NPS score 74

Being one of the companies with a high NPS score, Amazon prides itself on being “Earth’s most customer-centric company” – a statement that is difficult to dispute. After all, this logistics giant is a key figure in almost every industry it targets Home automation, streaming/OTT services, enterprise cloud services, and many more.

Amazon’s customer-focused leadership principles see it perform consistently well in NPS® surveys, which has translated into them having excellent customer retention. What’s more, Amazon’s existing customers are extremely willing to buy into their ecosystem.

Although exact figures are unknown, Amazon has between 70-90 million members, it’s the Amazon Prime subscription.

Amazon’s focus on customer experience can explain these incredible numbers. They’ve honed their website experience to perfection, and it shows: 85% of amazon prime shoppers visit their website at least once in a week. The number for non-prime shoppers is 56%.

03. Tesla: NPS score 96

From making online payments mainstream with PayPal to getting widespread acceptance for electric vehicles with Tesla – Elon Musk has been a driving force behind many game-changing products.

Tesla owners are incredibly happy with their vehicles, and that reflects in Tesla’s high NPS® scores. While previously, car owners had to adapt themselves to their vehicles’ feature set, they’ve now got a vehicle that can be personalized like never before. An incredible 91% of Tesla owners said that they would be willing to buy from the brand again, showing just how well Tesla’s high NPS® has translated into customer loyalty and retention.

That’s something other carmakers must take very seriously because prying customers away from Teslas’ electric charge up the charts will require more than just a good product.

Know your NPS^®

Companies with high NPS® scores have shown the benefits of working on improving your Net Promoter Score®. Customer retention and positive customer experiences and journey are just a few things that are synonymous with good NPS® results.

If you’d like to measure where you stand, Voxco’s NPS® calculator can help you calculate your NPS® and compare it with industry averages. You’ll also find links to our NPS® guide and articles which can help you on your customer retention journey.

How to design an advocacy marketing strategy to increase brand NPS^®?

Now that we have learned what these companies with the highest NPS scores have in common let’s look at three steps you should implement in your advocacy marketing strategy to increase your company’s net promoter score.

• Identify promoters.
• Focus on the why.
• Develop a holistic customer and employee experience.

01. Identify promoters

Advocacy marketing has the potential to be extremely profitable and valuable for your business and its brand value and positioning. However, instead of simply delivering good products and services and hoping for the best, it’s far more productive to identify promoters, detractors, and passives.

NPS® surveys are an effective tool for identifying your promoters, detractors, and passives. They can empower you to conveniently find out which of your customers are likely advocates for your brand and why. NPS® scores can help you profile your customers better and nurture them for word-of-mouth marketing.

02. Focus on the why

The “why” in feedback surveys can get you insights into factors that make customers loyal to your brand and can be a stepping stone for an advocacy marketing strategy.

NPS® surveys allow researchers to append another question to the initial opening question. You can ask your respondents why they scored you as they did. This feedback can play a critical role in helping you improve your products and services and can often help shine a light on lesser-known bumps in your organizational structure or customer journey.

03. Develop a holistic customer and employee experience

After gleaning insights via NPS® surveys, you must implement this feedback into your employee and customer journeys. After all, both of these entities are capable of organic promotion for your brand and are effective tools for advocacy marketing.

A customer experience program that effectively integrates customer feedback and visibly appreciates them for it is a key attribute of doing advocacy marketing work for your business.

Take Apple’s “shot on iPhone” exercise: It helped customers feel like they’re a contributor to Apple’s success (and even product development) and also worked as a tool to advertise the iPhone’s camera capabilities.

The same rationale works with employees as well. When your employees speak no ill of your organization and in fact, vociferously advocate for your services, It has a significantly positive impact on brand value.

With Voxco’s omnichannel survey software, you can set up effective customer experience programs with customer experience tool programs that incorporate the latest research technologies (NPS® surveys, CSAT, CES, etc.) that can help you develop an effective Advocacy marketing strategy for your brand.

Conclusion

For a business to succeed, customer loyalty, satisfaction, and retention play a crucial role. NPS is a significant metric that helps you gain insights into customer satisfaction and measure sentiment.

This metric has gained traction among industry leaders. In this blog, we have discussed the attributes that serve as a common thread among companies with high NPS. By understanding and embracing these factors, you can also strive towards achieving the highest net promoter score and fostering strong customer relationships.

However, it’s important to realize that the suggested methods in the blog are not a one-size-fits-all approach. You must adapt this principle based on your industry, business objective, and target audience.

By weaving these threads into your business, you can improve customer experience, boost loyalty, and drive growth in today’s competitive marketplace.

FAQ

What does NPS mean in business?

NPS refers to net promoter score, a metric that businesses in all industries use to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction. The metric offers a quantifiable approach to measuring customer sentiment and loyalty.

The idea behind this metric is to categorize the respondents into promoters, passives, and detractors based on their likelihood to recommend the organization and its offerings.

What is a good NPS for a company?

Any score above 0 (zero) is considered a good NPS score. Generally, scores above 50 are excellent, and above 70 are exceptional. However, the benchmark can vary across industries. So it's important to compare the NPS score by the company within the same industry to get a more accurate assessment.

IS 70% a good Net Promoter Score?

A 70% net promoter score is considered exceptional as it indicates a higher level of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

What companies can use NPS?

The metric is applicable across various company sizes and industries. Small businesses to enterprises can benefit from implementing the metric to measure loyalty and drive business success.

Why is Net Promoter Score important?

NPS helps you understand how likely customers are to advocate for your brand to others. This provides valuable insights into customer sentiment and loyalty. You can use the metric to track how customers feel about your brand, where you stand in the competition, and identify areas of improvement.

How can companies improve their NPS scores?

While you cannot use a one-size-fits-all approach to improve NPS scores, here is a general process to boost the score.

• Actively seek and listen to customer feedback.
• Train employees in their engagement with customers.
• Implement a clear vision of prioritizing customer-centricity across the organization.
• Leverage technology to draw meaningful insights from customer data.

Net Promoter^®, NPS^®, NPS Prism^®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ and Net Promoter System℠ are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

What is Systematic Sampling?

Systematic sampling is a type of probability sampling method used in research to select individuals from a target population at regular intervals. Unlike non-probability sampling, where not every individual has an equal chance of being chosen, systematic sampling ensures that each member of the population has a known and equal probability of selection. The process involves choosing a random starting point and then selecting every kᵗʰ individual from a structured list, where k is the sampling interval determined by dividing the population size by the desired sample size. This method offers a simple, efficient way to create representative samples—especially when working with large populations and well-defined sampling frames.
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How to Implement Systematic Sampling in Your Research

Systematic sampling can be implemented in just two main steps:

1. Calculate the sampling interval
   Divide the total population size (N) by the desired sample size (n) to determine the sampling interval (i). If the result is a decimal, round it to the nearest whole number.
   
   
2. Select a random starting point
   Choose a random starting point (r) between 1 and the sampling interval (i). From there, select every i-th element in the population list until the desired sample size is reached.
   
   

Before proceeding, it’s crucial to ensure that the sampling frame is not arranged in a cyclical or repetitive pattern. If it is, using a fixed interval may introduce bias.

Researchers often use survey platforms or social research tools with built-in sampling capabilities to streamline this process. For instance, Voxco’s survey platform offers advanced features that allow users to easily generate systematic samples through its panel management tools.

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Example of Systematic Sampling

Let’s say a researcher wants to select a sample of 25 individuals from a population of 1,000:

• Population size (N) = 1,000
  
  
• Sample size (n) = 25
  
  
• Sampling interval (i) = N / n = 1,000 / 25 = 40
  
  

This means the researcher will select every 40th individual from the list.

Next, a random starting point (r) must be chosen between 1 and 40. Suppose the researcher picks 17. The sample will then include the 17th person, the 57th, the 97th, and so on, continuing in 40-unit intervals until 25 participants are selected.

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Types of Systematic Sampling

There are three primary types of systematic sampling methods:

• Systematic Random Sampling
  The most common form, where a random start is followed by selection at fixed intervals.
  
• Linear Systematic Sampling
  In this method, the list is treated linearly. Once the end is reached, the sampling stops—even if the desired sample size isn’t met.‍
• Circular Systematic Sampling
  The population list is treated as a continuous loop. After reaching the end, the count continues from the beginning until the sample size is completed.

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1. Systematic Random Sampling

This is the most common and straightforward type. Here's how it works:

• Calculate the sampling interval using the formula: i = N / n
  
  
• Choose a random starting point (r) between 1 and i
  
  
• From that point onward, select every i-th element until the desired sample size is reached
  
  

2. Linear Systematic Sampling

In this method, the population list is treated as a linear sequence. Once the end of the list is reached, sampling stops—even if the full sample size hasn’t been met. Steps include:

• Create a sequential list of the population
  
  
• Determine your desired sample size (n) and compute the skip interval: k = N / n
  
  
• Pick a random starting number (r) between 1 and k
  
  
• Add k repeatedly to r to select the remaining units

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3. Circular Systematic Sampling

Here, the list is treated as circular, allowing the sampling to continue from the beginning if the end of the list is reached before the full sample is drawn:

• Calculate the interval: k = N / n
  
  
• Select a random starting point (r) between 1 and N
  
  

Move forward in k steps, looping back to the start of the list as needed, until n units are selected

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When Should You Use Systematic Sampling?

Systematic sampling is especially useful in the following research scenarios:

• When the population list is already randomized: If the sampling frame is randomly ordered, systematic sampling provides a quick and unbiased way to select a representative sample.
  
  
• When the population is large and well-defined: It's ideal for large-scale surveys where listing and selecting every individual manually would be time-consuming. The method simplifies the process without compromising accuracy.
  
  
• When resources or time are limited: Systematic sampling requires less effort than simple random sampling while still maintaining the principles of probability sampling, making it efficient for researchers with tight deadlines or limited staff.
  
  
• When you're using a structured list (like customer databases or employee rosters): As long as the list isn’t organized in a cyclical pattern, systematic sampling is a great choice for drawing samples from such structured data.
  
  
• When consistent intervals are meaningful or necessary: If your research benefits from evenly spaced sampling (e.g., time-based studies or product quality checks), systematic sampling can provide consistency in selection.

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Advantages of Systematic Sampling

• Simple to implement when a complete and ordered sampling frame is available
  
  
• Easy to understand and execute, even for researchers with limited statistical training
  
  
• Efficient and organized, especially compared to more complex sampling methods like stratified sampling
  
  
• Minimizes bias when the list is randomly ordered, ensuring a fair and representative sample

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Disadvantages of Systematic Sampling

• Risk of systematic bias if the population list is ordered in a repeating or cyclical pattern, which may align with the sampling interval and distort results
  
  
• Potential for data manipulation, as researchers could intentionally choose intervals or starting points that skew results
  
  
• Lower randomness compared to methods like simple random sampling, which can increase the risk of selecting similar types of units repeatedly
  
  

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Conclusion

Systematic sampling offers a practical, efficient, and widely-used approach for drawing representative samples—particularly when dealing with large populations and organized sampling frames. While it comes with a few limitations, especially regarding potential bias in non-random lists, its simplicity and speed make it a valuable tool in both academic and commercial research. When paired with the right tools, like Voxco’s survey platform, systematic sampling can help streamline the research process and ensure reliable results.

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Before launching a new product or tackling a new challenge, it’s critical to first understand the market — not by guessing, but by asking the right questions. That’s where exploratory research comes in.

In this guide, we'll cover what exploratory research is, how it works, when to use it, and the methods researchers rely on to uncover early insights.

‍

What is Exploratory Research?

Exploratory research is an approach used to investigate a problem that isn't yet clearly defined. Instead of offering final answers, exploratory research helps researchers better understand the scope of an issue and identify variables that may need deeper study later.

Researchers typically start with a broad idea and refine their focus as they gather more insights. Staying flexible and open-minded is essential — exploratory research often evolves as new information emerges.

It’s often used to answer questions like:

• What is happening?
  
  
• Why is it happening?
  
  
• How is it happening?
  
  

Example:
Imagine an app developer wants to understand how users perceive a new photo filter. They might first explore which user segments engage with the app, which filters are most popular, and why — then use that insight to decide whether creating a new, similar filter is a good investment.

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Key Characteristics of Exploratory Research

Exploratory research has several defining features:

• Flexible and open-ended: Researchers adjust their approach based on the insights they collect.
  
  
• Interactive: Methods like interviews and focus groups allow for deep exploration.
  
  
• Cost-effective: Compared to large-scale studies, exploratory research is usually more budget-friendly.
  
  
• Time-intensive: Gathering meaningful data can take longer due to the unstructured approach.
  
  
• Broad by design: Instead of proving a specific hypothesis, it aims to explore possibilities.
  
  
• Foundational: It helps build stronger, more targeted research questions for future studies.
  
  
• Qualitative in most cases: Though in some instances, such as surveys, quantitative data may also be gathered.
  
  

While exploratory research may not deliver conclusive results, it plays a crucial role in clarifying problems and informing more structured future studies.

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Methods of Exploratory Research

Researchers typically use primary and secondary methods to conduct exploratory research. Let’s break them down.

Primary Research Methods

Primary methods involve collecting new data directly from participants:

• Surveys:
  Short surveys or polls can help capture trends, opinions, or preferences. Thanks to technology, surveys can now be easily distributed online or even via SMS after a purchase, often incentivized with rewards to boost response rates.
  
  
• Focus Groups:
  Focus groups bring together people with shared backgrounds to discuss specific topics. Researchers can observe opinions, emotions, and group dynamics — offering rich qualitative insights.
  
  
• Observation:
  In observational studies, researchers watch behavior without direct interaction. For example, observing customers' reactions during a product launch can reveal spontaneous, honest feedback.
  
  
• Interviews:
  One-on-one interviews allow researchers to dive deep into individual experiences and perspectives. Open-ended questions help uncover details that structured surveys might miss.

Secondary Research Methods

Secondary research draws on previously published data:

• Online Resources:
  The internet offers quick access to polls, reports, and datasets — but always verify the credibility of your sources.
  
  
• Literature Reviews:
  Analyzing existing research, case studies, and government reports can surface patterns and hypotheses worth exploring further.
  
  
• Case Studies:
  Reviewing detailed examples of how others have addressed similar challenges can guide current decision-making — especially in sectors like healthcare, business, and social sciences.

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Steps to Conduct Exploratory Research

1. Identify the problem area:
   Clearly define the broad topic you want to explore.
   
   
2. Formulate a hypothesis (if needed):
   In cases where prior studies are lacking, creating a preliminary hypothesis can help guide the research.
   
   
3. Collect data:
   Use appropriate primary or secondary methods to gather information.
   
   
4. Analyze and advance:
   Use the insights to refine your understanding and plan future descriptive or experimental research.
   
   

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Advantages of Exploratory Research

• Flexibility: Researchers can adjust their approach as new data emerges. 
• Cost-effectiveness: Typically less expensive than large-scale studies.
• Foundation building: It sets the stage for more focused research later.
• Insight generation: Helps uncover root causes and underlying issues.

Limitations of Exploratory Research

• Inconclusive outcomes: Results are often directional rather than definitive.
• Subjectivity risk: Qualitative methods can introduce bias.
• Limited generalizability: Small sample sizes may not represent the broader population.
• Potentially outdated secondary data: Relying on old sources can skew findings.

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Final Thoughts

Exploratory research is a critical first step for anyone looking to truly understand a new problem, audience, or market opportunity. It lays the foundation for asking better, more targeted questions — making future research efforts stronger and more effective.

When done thoughtfully, exploratory research helps you move beyond assumptions and uncover insights that fuel smarter strategies. 

If you're looking to simplify how you collect and analyze early insights, learn how Voxco can help. Book a demo now.

Do you know less than one-third (29%) of insurance customers are satisfied with their current providers?29%Infact 21% of customers believe that insurers do not tailor their experiences at all.21%More than 30% of customers switch their insurers within a year after one poor claim experience!30%With 88% of insurance customers demanding more personalization from their providers and only 15% of customers satisifed with the existing digital experience, insurers need to put customer experience at the center of their business strategy. In this blog, we discuss how CX impacts insurance. Continue reading to find out more!We’re living in a new world – where digital proximity is driven by social distancing. As businesses prepare to go ‘contactless’ after the COVID-19 outbreak, it has become imperative for brands to reimagine their customer experience.The pandemic has upended the functioning of many industries and the insurance sector is no different. With low sales and few claims, insurance companies have now realized the need of accelerating digitization while diving deep into the core processes beyond automation. While many consumers are purchasing insurance products online, only 15% of them are satisfied with their insurers’ digital experience. Since the economic downturn has thoroughly impacted people’s lives and changed the perceptions of risk, customer relationships with their insurers matter more than ever.According to KPMG, COVID-19 may be a catalyst for greater innovation in the insurance sector, unlocking higher levels of customer experience. So, insurance companies that focus on providing best-in-class customer communication & response will future-proof themselves against any unexpected systemic disruptions.

Is it a challenge or opportunity?

The current scenario can come up as a challenge as well as an opportunity for insurers. If the insurers act appropriately now, they can experience a massive increase in sales even in an economic downturn. For instance, after the 2008 financial crisis, shareholders got up to 3X higher returns in companies that focused on customer experience.Innovating the improvements in CX is important but it can be challenging too. The insurers need to identify the online behavior of their customers. To ensure effective communication, insurers need to create customer journeys by using real-time & historical information. This includes harnessing existing information and making the most of it for the company's benefit.So the question arises - how to empower customers with a better experience through innovation around the core processes of insurance?

Customer care is paramount

As more than 30% of customers switch their insurers within a year after a bad claim experience, amplifying customer experience to win their trust has become the need of the hour. It is the key ingredient that enables brands to resonate more with their customers and develop an emotional connection. Building a long-lasting and strong relationship with your customers largely depends upon how you nurture them throughout their journey and the quality of the support being delivered.To establish this trustworthy bond with the policyholders, you have to ensure them that their claims will be paid. But these trying times have forced the customers to spectate certain anomalies as pandemics are not covered by insurance plans. The customers require a medium of reassurance where they feel heard.Quick service, diligent follow-ups, and a personalized experience are the basic requirements of all customers. Moreover, policyholders expect a bit more humanized experience now. As less than one-third (29%) of insurance customers are satisfied with their current providers, insurers need to adopt a more customer-centric approach to make them feel comfortable. From initial interaction to the inquiry-related terms, and payments & sales to claims, the insurers should deliver a compelling experience that resonates well with the customers' needs and desires. While every process has become digitized now, certain aspects such as policy planning or claim discussions still require the intervention of personnel who are empathic and patient.

Stabilize customers the right way

We witnessed how the economy experienced the brunt of COVID-19, small and medium-sized enterprises are no stranger to this. They’re struggling to gain footing and require powerful strategies that help them mitigate risks. As industry know-how has been crucial for commercial insurers until now, it’s time for them to actually reveal the value it adds to the customers, their business, and the local economy. The insurers’ industry knowledge and practical business skills can empower customers to streamline their workflows and the insurers’ can stabilize their own line of business too.By delivering exceptional customer care, insurers can carve a trustful relationship with their commercial customers that will extend even after the pandemic is over.

Transform the transactional approach into a comprehensive support one

There's no doubt that point of contact with customers is a part of the transactional business approach for most insurers. To change the impression of insurance as a “necessary evil”, companies should adopt a model that supports a wider ecosystem of life rather than the incident-driven ones. By doing so, it will help to add value in this tough time.As 21% of customers believe that providers do not tailor their experiences at all, insurers need to make their brand synonymous with care at every stage of the customer journey. For instance, refunding auto premiums because of minimized driving, abolishing deductibles for people impacted by COVID-19, or even fast-tracking claims can play a pivotal role in demonstrating care and empathy.The onset of coronavirus pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities and stress points of customers as well as insurers. However, it has also come up as a long-sought opportunity for driving the necessary change. Do you want to re-engineer your existing operations with improved CX? Voxco can help you gain complete control of Customer Experience with insights into customer feedback, satisfaction with the claim process, and more.Check out our Customer Experience Hub and get a jump start on measurably improving the quality of your CX initiatives.

Create Omnichannel Surveys with Voxco

Voxco is trusted by Top 50 Market Research firms, Global Brands & Universities in 40 countries. Voxco offers full omnichannel capability including CATI, Predictive Dialler, Online surveys, offline CAPI, and Panel Management. Check out Voxco Offerings below: 

Voxco Online

Create engaging omnichannel online surveys with advanced skip patterns, multi-media files, automatic device detection and more.Read more about Voxco Online Survey Software

Voxco Analytics

Create one click summaries, visual dashboards, uncover key trends and easily share the report with teams.Read more about Voxco Survey Analytics 

Voxco CATI

Maximize CATI ROI with advanced features, hosting options, seamless telephony integration, and flexible pricing.Read more on Voxco CATI survey software

Voxco IVR

Voxco IVR can be used as a standalone, self completion survey option or in combination with other data collection modes.Read more about Voxco IVR Survey Software Book Demo

When you think of customer experience (CX), you probably think of e-commerce or subscription services—not charitable organizations. But in a world where personalized service and meaningful connections drive loyalty, nonprofits can no longer afford to overlook the role CX plays in donor engagement.

In a landscape where over 10 million nonprofits are competing for attention and funding, building lasting relationships with donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s essential.

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What Sets Nonprofit “Customers” Apart?

Unlike traditional customers, nonprofit supporters aren’t looking for a tangible return on their money or time. They’re motivated by belief—belief in your cause, in your ability to drive change, and in the idea that their contribution matters. That makes nonprofit “customers”—donors, volunteers, advocates, beneficiaries—uniquely emotionally invested.

This investment is personal. Donors want to see the human impact of their giving. Volunteers want to know their skills and time are truly valued. Even those on the receiving end of services often become the most powerful advocates. These individuals aren’t just participants—they’re partners.

That’s why customer experience (CX) in the nonprofit world can’t be treated as an afterthought or a checklist. It must be relational, not transactional—built on transparency, gratitude, empathy, and shared purpose. When people give to your organization, they’re not just investing in outcomes. They’re investing in you.

Understanding these dynamics helps nonprofits:

• Recognize that donor fatigue is often rooted in feeling disconnected or undervalued.
• Reframe engagement as ongoing relationship-building, not just acquisition and retention.
• Deliver experiences that speak to people’s motivations—whether it’s legacy, community, advocacy, or direct impact.

By treating donors and volunteers as multifaceted stakeholders—not just names in a CRM—organizations can foster deeper loyalty and rise above the noise in an increasingly crowded nonprofit landscape.

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Embedding a Donor-Centric Culture in Nonprofits

For nonprofits, mission comes first—but it’s the people who believe in that mission that make it possible. Donors, volunteers, beneficiaries, and staff are all part of the ecosystem. Creating a culture that centers around donor experience isn’t about turning your nonprofit into a business—it’s about strengthening the trust and connection that sustain your work.

A donor-centric culture recognizes that every touchpoint—from a thank-you email to a social post or a donation form—is an opportunity to make supporters feel seen, valued, and connected to the cause. It also ensures that internal teams are aligned in how they view and engage donors, creating a consistent and meaningful experience across all channels.

Here’s how nonprofit teams can embed donor-centricity into their day-to-day:

• Start with internal alignment: Make donor experience a shared priority across fundraising, programs, marketing, and leadership. When teams collaborate, the donor journey becomes seamless and consistent.
• Train your frontline teams intentionally: Volunteers and staff who engage directly with donors should be empowered with clear messaging, empathy-driven communication, and real examples of impact to share.
• Encourage feedback loops internally and externally: Collect input not only from donors, but also from staff and volunteers. What do they hear from the field? What patterns are emerging in donor concerns or questions?
• Celebrate donor impact regularly: Move beyond annual reports. Show how donations make a difference through updates, visuals, or donor spotlights. Reinforce their role in the mission narrative.
• Treat every donor like a partner, not a transaction: Whether it’s a $10 one-time gift or a major grant, each contribution is a step in a shared mission. This mindset shift builds loyalty and long-term advocacy.

When nonprofits actively prioritize donor experience in their culture, they don’t just retain support—they deepen it. In a crowded giving landscape, a strong emotional connection can be your biggest differentiator.

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Why CX Matters More Than Ever

As nonprofits face rising competition for attention and funding, organizations that prioritize donor and volunteer experience are better positioned to retain support, build trust, and grow their impact.

At Voxco, we help nonprofits worldwide conduct high-quality social research and deliver better stakeholder experiences. With over 45 years of experience in public sector and nonprofit research, our flexible platform makes it easier to manage complex survey needs, segment audiences, and gather meaningful feedback across every touchpoint.

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Ready to turn every donor interaction into a lasting connection? Voxco’s all-in-one survey platform helps nonprofits gather meaningful feedback, measure impact, and elevate donor experiences—across every channel. Let’s help you build trust and drive your mission forward. Book a demo to see how.

Text mining, also known as text data mining or text analytics, refers to the process of deriving high-quality information from text. Leveraging techniques and tools from both AI (artificial intelligence) and NLP, text mining involves the discovery of patterns, trends, and insights in text data. Text mining is widely used in various fields, including marketing, business intelligence, healthcare, finance, to make sense of large amounts of unstructured text and derive actionable insights. 

How Text Mining Applications Benefit Your Company

Text mining can provide numerous benefits to a company across various departments and functions. Here are some of the key ways it can add value:

1. Customer Insights and Sentiment Analysis
2. Market Research and Competitive Analysis
3. Improving Customer Service
4. Enhancing Product Development
5. Boosting Marketing Efforts
6. Human Resources and Employee Insights
7. Knowledge Management
8. Operational Efficiency

By leveraging text mining, companies can unlock valuable insights from unstructured text data, leading to improved decision-making, enhanced customer experiences, and increased operational efficiency.

What Are the Main Steps in the Text Mining Process?

Text mining typically includes the following tasks:

1. Information Retrieval: Extracting relevant information from large text collections, such as documents, emails, web pages, and social media posts.
2. Natural Language Processing (NLP): Using computational techniques to analyze and understand human language. NLP includes tasks like tokenization, part-of-speech tagging, named entity recognition, and sentiment analysis.
3. Text Categorization: Automatically classifying text into predefined categories or topics. This can be used for organizing documents, spam detection, and more.
4. Text Clustering: Grouping similar documents or text segments together based on their content. This helps in identifying themes and patterns within large text datasets.
5. Sentiment Analysis: Determining the sentiment expressed in a piece of text, such as positive, negative, or neutral. This is commonly used in social media monitoring and customer feedback analysis.
6. Topic Modeling: Discovering abstract topics within a collection of documents. Techniques like Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) are commonly used for this purpose.
7. Information Extraction: Extracting specific pieces of information, such as names, dates, and relationships, from unstructured text.
8. Summarization: Creating concise summaries of large texts to highlight the most important points.
9. Text Visualization: Using graphical representations to help understand and interpret text data, such as word clouds and topic maps.

Text Mining Examples in Marketing

There are many use cases available for text mining. If you were in marketing, for example, here are some of the most common use cases you might consider.

• Learning about positive, negative, and neutral reactions from your audience: Sentiment analysis is an excellent tool for marketers as it allows you to quickly see what the reception is to the topic that you’re studying. When you have a good understanding of your audience’s reactions, you can tailor your marketing based on that information.
• Categorizing survey responses: Group survey responses into broad topics or get granular with it, depending on your needs. You can focus on the areas that are most important for a particular campaign. Recurring themes may require closer examination, so you can conduct more studies that focus specifically in those areas to get more information.
• Translating and scoring survey results: Are you working with more than one language on your survey responses? You don’t need to translate that as a separate step before it goes into your text mining application. Simply choose a software that supports the languages you see the most and it can automate the process.
• Gauging interest in a new concept: Even when you do your best at developing a concept that should appeal to your audience, sometimes the latest project just falls flat. You can start to troubleshoot why that happened by using text mining and open ended survey questions to see what your audience is thinking about the latest products, services, and company moves. By gauging the interest in a new concept before you move forward with the project, you can handle development much more cost-effectively. This helps you avoid particularly high-profile failures, as a small study may end up with respondents that are more on-board with the concept than a more representative sample of your audience.
• Understanding the customer experience: Do you know why your customers feel the way that they do about your customer experience? It’s not enough to know if they are happy or not. You need to know the why behind it if you want to excel at marketing. Text mining gives you the why so that you can continually improve the experience and the marketing tools that support it.
• Discovering your customer satisfaction ratings and the meaning behind them: Your audience gives you a lot of feedback on whether they’re happy or not, you just need a way to analyze it. Use text mining to look through customer service records to identify customers who may be open to purchasing again, those that are upset with the company and need attention, and others that may need a push to move away from being ambivalent in either direction.
• Tracking the success of new products and services: You want to know how well your new products and services are doing now, not weeks or months from now. Automating the analysis through a text mining tool means that you can get near a real-time understanding of how well a product launch is going.
• Finding new business opportunities: Open ended survey responses allow you to find replies that are outside of the norm. Sometimes your customers have adopted a product or service for a use case that never came up in research studies. Expanding horizontally or vertically may be possible based on this data, which can offer an excellent approach to building your business.
• Using customer service data for marketing strategies: Your customer service data is a marketing goldmine, but it’s often overlooked due to the logistical challenges of processing the information. Text mining eliminates these concerns and allows you to find out more about your customers, what they like, dislike, and how to keep them loyal and happy.
• Providing hard data for reports and presentations: If you need a way to make your case to upper management, having powerful visualizations in helpful reports and presentations is one way to make it happen. Text mining creates structure out of unstructured data, so you’re able to use it in this fashion. Customizable dashboards are another way to easily access the data in a form that’s user-friendly for most marketers. When you can easily work with the data, that makes it more accessible to power all types of marketing efforts.
• Improving the value of social media comments: People are more than happy to comment on social media posts, but harnessing that data is hard if you’re doing it manually and have a relatively active page. Text mining makes this process more efficient and allows you to leverage such a large and frequently updated data set. Consistently looking at your social media comments is also a good way to stay ahead of any public relations problems you may encounter. You can execute your crisis communications plan as soon as you start seeing negative comments pop up.
• Creating performance benchmarks for marketing campaigns: Get more benchmarking metrics for your marketing campaigns so you can study how customer sentiment changes over time, the ways they react to new campaigns, and isolating the characteristics that lead to a successful marketing effort.
• Powering Voice of the Customer programs: Voice of the Customer programs are greatly improved when you have a cost-effective and productive way of working with audience feedback.

Whether you’re using text mining for a one-off study or an ongoing series, your team will benefit from its implementation. It takes some time to fine-tune the results for your use cases, but once you get it dialed in, you’re going to wonder how you ever did without it.

Choose Ascribe For Your Text Analysis Needs

Ascribe has two advanced text analytics solutions to meet your business needs. CX Inspector is a text analysis solution that quickly unlocks actionable insights from large data sets with unstructured or open end responses and creates charts to visualize the results. Coder, another text analytics solution, is the leading verbatim coding platform designed to improve the efficiency of coding. Contact us for more information or request a demo with your data.

How often does your business conduct surveys of your customers, employees, and other parties? What types of questions do you use? Closed questions are those that have a predictable and limited set of answers. For example, any yes or no questions fall under this category. Open ended questions have broader responses and have the potential to give you new insights into your audience.

What are Open Ended Survey Questions?

An open ended question allows the respondent to use their own words to go into detail about what they’re thinking or feeling. This type of information is useful because it can give you hard data about assumptions you make on your audience, open up new opportunities, and give you feedback in a conversational tone.You end up with a lot of data to sort through and manually processing open ended survey questions requires a lot of resources. However, there are automated solutions available that make this process much easier.

Using Open Ended Survey Responses

Open-ended survey responses can be used in many types of research for your company, such as learning more about your customer experience, gauging why people responded the way that they did to NPS surveys, finding areas of discontent with employees, and countless other use cases.

Open Ended Survey Software

If you’re using an automated solution for working with this unstructured information, then you’re likely using a text analytics or sentiment analysis tool. These advanced solutions rely on artificial intelligence in the form of Natural Language Processing. The system translates what the respondents are saying into a form that the computer can understand and analyze. It accounts for many nuances of language, such as slang, different languages, grammatical rules, and identifies the underlying themes and emotion in the response.

The Benefits of Open Ended Survey Questions

Open ended survey questions may require additional tools to interpret the results, but this data offers a wealth of benefits.

Locate insights in verbatim comments

You never know what your audience might bring to light. Sometimes you have a strong understanding of the topics they’re likely to bring up, but in other cases, they come from left field. If you don’t let your audience have the opportunity to add details to their responses or make comments, then these insights would be lost.

Analyze social media feedback

Social media is a powerful tool for direct customer feedback. Whether people are responding to your content or sharing their opinions on their own pages, you’ll be able to see what they really think about your business. These posts can spur other conversations which may lead into completely new territory when it comes to your audience.

Document detailed feedback for products and services

You can be as broad or specific as you’d like with open ended surveys. Your audience may choose to expand on their comments or start talking about topics outside of the question. You may end up with a whole new line of survey questions following these replies.

Read between the lines

You learn as much from what people don’t say as what they do. Open-ended questions give you the opportunity to determine what the person is actually thinking, or what they’re implying in their response. This context can drastically change the tone of the feedback and the insights you get out of it.

Identify factors driving employee satisfaction

If you knew exactly what was wrong that was driving employee unhappiness, you could fix it. Open-ended surveys for employee engagement allow you to find out exactly what’s going on that drives dissatisfaction in the workplace, rather than guessing at the cause.

Discover the “whys” behind your audience’s choices

A simple yes or no question doesn’t show you why the person chose that response. They could be making the decision based on factors that you have already predicted, or for a completely different reason. You won’t know until you ask.

Allow your audience to speak with their own voices

You get a lot of value from this benefit, even if you don’t do anything with the unstructured data. By allowing your audience to engage with you as though they were having a conversation, they’re free to share their opinions in a form that works best for their needs. You can use this data for more than just sentiment analysis. You can also use it to make your sales and marketing efforts more relatable, by using their own voice and verbiage selection in the materials.

Using Text Analytics to Analyze Open Ended Survey Questions

You get a lot more out of your verbatim comments when you have technology helping you process them. Some of the most useful features that are available in this software category include:

Grouping topics

You can combine similar topics, create complex taxonomies, and learn more about the themes that come up in conversations with customers.

Creating Rule Sets

You have unique needs in your industry and using a custom rule set allows you to better analyze the data.

Scrubbing open ended survey data

You don’t want to worry about data breaches getting in the way of your text analysis or extraneous personal data getting in the way of results. You can also use this feature to clean up other parts of the responses that may not be relevant to your analysis, such as curse words.

Integrating with popular tools

Data sources come in many forms, and you’ll need an easy way to get that in and out of your solution. Great text analytics tools allow you to have multiple data sources, as well as APIs that give you a lot of flexibility in how you work with the solution.

Custom reporting and dashboards for visualization

Many people who aren’t data scientists need access to text analytics and the results. Powerful reporting and dashboard tools allow them to present the data in the way that works best for their job role, as well as create visualizations that are useful for non-technical users.

Comparing verbatim statements

You can see how your comments relate to one another through comparison tools. This option also allows you to see how comments change over time as you make improvements, introduce new products, and apply what you’ve learned to your operations.

Automating the translation process

When you’re working with more than one language, it’s convenient if translation can take place in the text analysis solution. You don’t have to worry about this feature if you’re only operating in areas that have a single dominant language. However, even demographics and regions that have a strong preference for an official language may feel more comfortable responding in another. Make sure that the languages you want to cover are supported by the solution.

Creating word clouds

This visualization tool allows you to see how frequently each topic is mentioned in the responses, with larger words denoting a greater number of responses pertaining to that topic.

Filtering unstructured data

You can focus on the unstructured data that is most relevant to your business, and filter out information that doesn’t have value.

How Do You Code Open Ended Survey Responses

The coding process varies based on whether you use a manual or automatic process. It does follow the same broad steps, just with a computer handling it and speeding up the process in the automated option.

Loading Open Ended Survey Data

The first step is to pull your open ended question data into the software that you’re using to process it. For manual coding, you may use a spreadsheet for keeping everything organized. Once this information is in the software, you’re going to want to eliminate the unusable data from it. This type of data includes incomplete responses, those typed in gibberish, and blank replies.

Cleaning Open Ended Survey Responses

By cleaning the data before you start to go through it, you can focus on the responses that matter. Look at each verbatim comment and identify any predominant themes and topics that stick out to you. Generally, you want to have a focused set of themes so that you can best understand the analysis. If you spread yourself too thin, then it may be difficult to get meaningful data from your responses.

Discovering Themes in Open Ended Surveys

You can see how many people comment on a particular theme, and then determine whether their response is a positive, neutral, or negative one in that area. Using text analytics software greatly speeds up this process and makes it possible to go through large data sets, which may be challenging for manual practices.

Free Text Questions

If you’re wondering what types of questions are commonly used to get open ended survey responses, you can try these ones out.

• How are we doing? Many customers know exactly the feedback they would like to provide to you. This simple question allows them to quickly provide that feedback, and helps you understand what is really on their mind.
• What interests you? Learn more about your audience and the things that they enjoy doing with their time. You can find potential new markets with this type of question, as well as being able to identify things that they value the most. See where you align and how you can use this information to create relevant sales and marketing material.
• What is your first impression of our company? How has this changed over time? You can learn more about your reputation in the marketplace, what customers think when they first encounter your brand, and ways that their impression changes over time. This question works well for your repeat customer base, especially those that have been with the company for months or years. If the shifts are favorable, then you can continue to follow those business goals and strategies.
• What reasons did you pick us over a competitor? Your unique selling proposition may be completely different from what you expected. Learn exactly why you end up getting picked over other companies in your market segment, and capitalize on that.
• What problems have we solved for you? You learn about the use cases for your product and how customers are actually using it, compared to the ways that you predicted they would use it. Sometimes you can discover completely new ways to use your products, which can inform research and development.
• What problems are we not solving for you? You get a better understanding about other pain points in the customer’s life. While you might not be able to solve all of these issues, you can potentially address them in future products and services.
• How do you use our products? This is another way to find out about the use cases that are in real-world situations. You may find that the use cases are much broader than you expected.
• What’s your feature wishlist for our products? You may not be able to use all, or even half of these suggestions, but it’s useful to see what your customers are thinking about your current offerings. Some feature requests may make it into an upgraded version of the product or as a completely new release.
• How did you feel during your last experience with our company? Learn more about recent interactions your audience had with your company. You can use this question to find out whether your customer experience remains strong, or if there are issues cropping up that could impact their overall impression of your company.
• What would you like to see our company do? This question is another one that will have a range of responses, covering everything from unexpectedly useful to off the wall outrageous. It’s great to have food for thought. This is another opportunity to find new markets to expand into and better learn how to serve your customers.

Analyzing your open ended survey questions is an excellent course of action to take your business to the next level. If you’re currently handling this process manually, an automated software solution for text analytics and sentiment analysis can boost your productivity significantly and allow you to process much larger data sets.

Uncover More Insights in Verbatim Comments

If you are looking to uncover insights from verbatim comments with ease, check out Ascribe’s fourth generation text analytics offering, CX Inspector. CX Inspector, is a customizable and feature-rich text analytics tool that provides topic and sentiment analysis from verbatim comments automatically.For a more comprehensive solution add X-Score, a customer measurement approach that provides a customer satisfaction score from open-ended comments.