Elevate the Customer Experience with Idea Management Software

Idea management software has become an integral part of the customer experience. Now that companies are turning to customers for ideas when creating new products. They’re finding the landscape has changed.

According to a recent Gartner survey, over 80 percent of businesses expect to compete based on the benefits provided by stellar customer experience. This competition is driven by the ideas gathered from the customers themselves, which make it possible for businesses to address specific needs.

IdeaScale provides innovation management software that gives companies a platform for sharing ideas across the board. This crucial process is helping companies improve the customer experience while embracing new tools and technologies.

IdeaScale’s Jessica Day and Whitney Bernstein were featured on a recent episode of the podcast Biz Talk with Emmanuel to discuss the connection between idea management and customer experience. Through real-life case studies, they explained how managing internal ideas can increase productivity. And enable companies to better serve their customers.

The IdeaScale software is primarily used to crowdsource ideas. This is the process of gathering suggestions from people through multiple channels. For example, an organization leader may look to a specific department or team for ideas about a new initiative. But could receive more robust feedback by reaching out to different departments or even customers for new ideas.

Benefits of IdeaScale Software

IdeaScale’s platform allows organization managers and team leaders to collect ideas. Then find ways to manage them. These ideas could be related to office tasks, product launches, or organizational decisions.

One of the key challenges organizations faces whether public, nonprofit, or private is focusing on the customer experience. As Jessica Day noted, this is one of the top five things companies work on improving.

Company leaders previously learned about what customers wanted through traditional means such as surveys and focus groups. Now they are turning to actual customer interactions using idea management software which allows the exchange of ideas using a format that results in personal engagement.

Success through Customer Involvement

Today’s business leaders seek to be experience-led. According to a recent survey conducted by Forrester Consulting, businesses that use customer experience to make important decisions have 1.6 times more brand awareness than companies that aren’t focusing on what customers need.

One example of how the IdeaScale platform is changing the face of customer experience occurred with a hospital system called Tri Health, located in Cincinnati, OH. Consisting of six hospitals, 800 physicians, and 4,000 team members, it is the fourth largest employer in the city.

The CEO suggested crowdsourcing as a way to promote employee engagement. He believed employees who love their job would connect with patients in ways that would save lives. He launched a new program in 2016 that took their engagement score from the 26^th percentile to the 74^th.

The initiative was successful because employees found ways to engage with patients, successfully use new technology, and save money. Which resulted in shorter hospital stays and more lives saved.

Target achieved a similar result with a recent campaign to launch a product line for college students. Again, crowdsourcing was used to ask college students what products they would find useful when staying in dorms. They received a couple of hundred ideas, narrowed them down to 20 finalists, and chose seven products to include in their new line.

Connecting with customers is an ongoing process. IdeaScale is expanding, recently opening an office in Australia. Visit the IdeaScale website for more information on the platform, and check out the podcast, Biz Talk with Emmanuel for the entire interview.