Hunter Douglas, a manufacturer and marketer of custom window treatments, found a new way to analyze customer communications to make better products and improve customer service by using “unsolicited feedback” from consumers.

By analyzing customer service calls, call center agent notes, social media posts, and secure email messages to and from customers, the company can identify not only when and how customers struggle with its products, but also why.

The strategy is built to ensure quality, said Melinda Keith, senior director of customer support at Hunter Douglas. “We look for words that pop the most,” she said. “Then we figure out why. If the word ‘repair’ consistently comes up, we determine whether or not it refers to a specific product line.”

Technology created challenges for the company as it moved into motorized shades that connect to the internet and go up and down or open and close automatically. Having the technology to determine those challenges makes it easier to solve and determine whether it’s a network connection.

Despite initial challenges, technology also helped to improve its products.

Through the process, Hunter Douglas discovered it had an issue with one of its new product designs. For example, the company recently launched a Light Lock product, a complete blackout shade. The sides have a honeycomb design that, as it turns out, allowed some light to seep through.

Topbox technology allowed the company to determine the location of the leaks in light. Customer service shared the data from specific cases with research and development, which fixed the problem within a couple of weeks.

Keeping up with technology, Hunter Douglas rolled out a proprietary web-based dealer management and ordering platform called The Link, a tool for dealers to coordinate the entire life cycle of consumer purchases, from marketing to sales, ordering, fulfillment and customer service. 

The manufacturer combined this with the Topbox conversation analytics platform to find actionable insights from dealer and customer interactions including contact center calls, emails, chat, and surveys, and decisions that improve product and process quality and dealer and customer satisfaction. Using Topbox, the company can search through hundreds of individual call transcripts within minutes and gain the specific context of what caused an increase or decrease in reorders. It also integrates into the company’s search engine to determine the “main pain points live,” she said.

Hunter Douglas, which has been working with Topbox for a little more than a year, also can detect issues with its products and act on them to improve the way partners and customers experience the company’s products and service.

Those responsible for the company’s web site use the tools to determine keywords and why people search on specific products.

The data is shared across Hunter Douglas to inform decisions that impact product engineering, customer contact center, marketing and sales.

Analysts who listen to customer service phone calls and identify issues with the service rep now can automate the process in Topbox. They can measure the call, email or chat, and then fill out the Q&A form to share it with individual reps.