Real-time Collaboration from HappyOrNot, a customer experience management company, is a solution designed to help managers and frontline teams use data to detect issues as soon as they arise, communicate responses internally, and then act to rectify them.
Having collected more than 1.3 billion “Smiley” impressions in 135 countries to date, the Finnish technology company is integrating Real-time Collaboration into its product suite in order to deliver further service enhancements to its customers around the world.
Real-time Collaboration is an app feature that allows managers and employees in sectors ranging from retail to hospitality, and facilities to stadia, to be alerted as soon as a potential issue arises (based on spikes in “Smiley” data), such as long waiting times at airport security or unstocked shelves at a retailer. When the number of negative or positive responses from designated Smiley Terminal and Smiley Touch products exceeds a preset value, staff are sent automated push notifications through the HappyOrNot mobile reporting app.
How does it work? First, users set alert conditions on the locations and time periods that are being monitored. The real-time alerts are generated from all Smiley Terminal and Smiley Touch products. If alerts have been generated by a Smiley Touch, users can see the top pain points or highlights, along with any open feedback from customers. When negative or positive responses in a specific location exceed a preset value during a specified time frame, automated push notifications are sent out to the right people on their mobile phones (with e-mail alerts also sent out as a supporting channel). Alert acknowledgement and commenting provides a record of all situations, allowing managers and team members to stay up to date, log processes, and share feedback as issues are resolved.
All within the app, managers and frontline staff are able to communicate and issue direct instructions on how to handle the situation. For example, if wait time is a commonly-cited problem on a Smiley Touch, receiving frequent dark red negative feedbacks, retail employees will be alerted and can open a new checkout in response, while also telling their colleagues the issue should be solved.
Managers and team members are also able to review alerts and log processes retrospectively, meaning organizations can learn from previous problems to prevent them from happening again. Alongside this, managers can celebrate staff who respond quickly and effectively to any issues, as demonstrated through the app.
Heikki Väänänen, CEO and Founder of HappyOrNot, comments: “We’ve all been there. You’re waiting, impatiently, in line at a store, confused as to why more checkouts aren’t open. If a staff member were to arrive and start serving customers, wait times would be halved and we’d all go home happy. Despite this frustration, it’s not fair to expect staff to have a psychic awareness of these problems. Through our data, however, teams are notified of situations like these, and can in real-time collaborate to fix issues. All this means that customers are happier and able to get on with their day, staff are less stressed and feel empowered by their ability to resolve issues more quickly, and businesses can flourish as a result.”
Moon Javaid, Vice President, Strategy & Analytics, for NFL team the San Francisco 49ers, comments: “Our operational protocol is to respond to real-time alerts within five minutes. Our scores have increased over time. Fans are happier and understand we’re listening to them. Our overall experience satisfaction biometrics have improved by double digits.”
Juan Sebeto, Center Manager of Abasto Shopping, comments: “HappyOrNot’s Real-time Collaboration is helping us to identify problems and act faster to resolve them in our shopping centers. Supervisors can now take immediate action and dispatch tasks to the right people, and we write comments on every alert. We use this, combined with the other insights from HappyOrNot, in our daily work to continuously improve the visitor experiences.
“For us, the main benefits relate both to the immediateness of action and the corroboration of satisfaction levels compared with the established standard. Above all, HappyOrNot provides critical insights that helps us to adopt a culture where actions are based on the opinion of our clients, and not our own.”
