Beyond the Arc
Acting on Customer Insights with Analytics

Today, the pathway to customer loyalty begins at the earliest stages of product discovery, through the purchase process, and beyond. “Creating and delivering unmatched customer experiences is now required for businesses to thrive,” begins Steven J. Ramirez, CEO, Beyond the Arc. The agency works closely with C-suite executives to help them understand the significance of CX, discover data-driven insights, and take action. With new customer-focused strategies in place, companies are better equipped to ensure customer satisfaction, strengthen brand loyalty, and grow sales.

Beyond the Arc has a reputation for helping organizations transform to become more customer-centric. “From a technical perspective, we use predictive analytics and text mining to understand what customers are saying about the brand, and predict the actions they are likely to take,” says Ramirez. As a full-service agency, Beyond the Arc uses these insights to shape Customer Experience Strategy, and then they create the communications, training and social media to ensure successful execution.

The key to creating a customer-centric organization is to develop data-driven decision making. Beyond the Arc’s team of data scientists start with a “CX data assessment” to evaluate the data distributed across all of the silos. “We help companies use the data they have to make better decisions—we unlock the value of their data,” says Ramirez. The team then uses machine learning, predictive analytics, advanced statistics, and other methods to build business solutions. For one cable television client, Beyond the Arc helped them to assess patterns of viewership, to better understand exactly which programs and networks motivated people to maintain their monthly package. For a major university, Beyond the Arc helped to predict the factors that shape student performance and success, as a way to improve student satisfaction.

For many organizations, some of its most valuable information is stored as unstructured text data. Beyond the Arc’s work in Voice of the Customer (VOC) leverages technologies like text analytics, natural language processing, and machine learning to derive insights from this big data. The solution extracts information from diverse sources, including call center and CRM notes, open-ended survey responses, social media, and customer service mail. And with advanced statistical analysis of surveys, the solution can provide a very complete picture of a customer’s interactions with a company.

To become customer-centric, you have to first become more data-centric

With its unique quantitative approach to CX strategy, Beyond the Arc can surface hidden customer pain points. In one instance, a Top 10 bank had difficulties identifying the challenges in their customer service operations. This was posing significant regulatory risks and making some customers very unhappy. The client implemented Beyond the Arc’s solution and was able to develop an enterprise-level Voice of the Customer program. The solution, built on IBM’s SPSS Modeler platform, collected customer feedback and operational data from over 20 different sources throughout the enterprise, including over 1 million customer emails monthly. Beyond the Arc’s machine learning algorithms attacked two problems:

• First, they auto-classified customer comments to identify previously defined pain points, and track them over time. This CX issue tracking system captured over 100 issues, and could relate them back to products, distribution channels, and geographical regions.

• Second, the Beyond the Arc team created an “emerging issues engine” to define and detect previously unknown issues.

Post implementation, “The bank gained the ability to quantify the impacts of certain issues that were critical for them, and make operational changes to correct the problem,” says Ramirez.

Besides using data and analytics to design CX strategies, the team at Beyond the Arc also works with companies to create brand messaging, customer-focused email communications, and training to help employees bring the Customer Experience Strategy to life. E-learning platforms, CRM, digital content management, intranet sites, and SharePoint are all part of the extended technology stack that they support.

When it comes to what’s next, Ramirez shares, “Beyond the Arc is excited about the role IoT will play in the evolution of providing exceptional customer experience in the years to come.”