Increasing customer focus with Viva Insights
Important
This article is for the legacy Workplace Analytics app and does not reflect functionality available on the updated Viva Insights platform. Access current documentation for Viva Insights advanced insights here: advanced insights documentation.
Companies that prioritize customer relationships and satisfaction grow revenue faster than competitors. Research shows that companies that prioritize customer relationships and satisfaction grow revenue 2.5 times faster than their competitors.
Each of the behaviors listed show how your organization compares with others based on industry research and your specific organizational data.
Calculations
The following are the percentage insights, their underlying metrics, and a little about the calculations used for them.
| Behavior | Percentage insight | Metrics | Calculations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Optimize time with customers | Percentage of employees who spend 8+ hours in external collaboration every week | External network size and external collaboration hours and connected people and connected groups | Percentage of employees who spend more than 8 hours collaborating with people outside the company. This insight is calculated weekly and averaged over the entire time period. |
| Promote coaching and development | Percentage of employees who have less than 15 minutes of 1:1 time with their managers each week | Meeting hours with manager 1:1 | The percentage of employees who spend less than 15 minutes of coaching time with their managers each week. To account for different frequencies in coaching, this percentage is calculated monthly and then divided by four to get a weekly average. |
The following defines the organizational data shown in the visual behavioral insights.
| Behavior | Visual insight | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Optimize time with customers | Distribution of external collaboration | Percentage of employees grouped by their weekly external collaboration hours. They are divided into groups of employees who spend zero to four hours, four to eight hours, and more than eight hours collaborating externally with people outside the company. These percentages are calculated weekly and averaged over the entire time period. |
| Promote coaching and development | Distribution of monthly 1:1 time with managers | Percentage of employees based on their monthly meeting hours with manager 1:1. They are divided into employees who have no 1:1s, have between zero and one hour, and have more than one hour of 1:1s with their manager in a month. These percentages are calculated monthly and averaged over the entire time period. |
Take action
You can select See your insights to see ways you can drive change or simply maintain your organization's focus on customers. Depending on your role, the following are available in addition to the recommendations within Take action.
Opportunity groups - Lists the groups who are most affected and would benefit the most from these recommended best practices or Plans, which are based on your organizational data and industry research.
Explore the stats – The following recommendations link to more in-depth data about your organization's management and coaching and external collaboration. In the Take action section for each of the following behaviors, select See your insights > Explore the stats to access them:
Behavior Recommendation Explore the stats Optimize time with customers Make strategic time investments External collaboration(if that link doesn't work, try this link instead) Promote coaching and development Increase frequency of coaching Management and coaching(if that link doesn't work, try this link instead) Plans - Opens a new Plan you can set up relating to one or more of the recommendations.
Best practices
This section describes why each of the following behaviors matter and the top best practices that can help increase customer focus.
Optimize time with customers
Collaboration with customers and other external contacts enables employees to gain the customer and market knowledge needed for business success. Spending time collaborating with customers helps you better anticipate customer's needs and develop products and services that create real value.
According to Optimizing sales and connecting with customers in the age of big data and machine learning: "More time spent with customers; larger internal networks; and more time spent with managers and senior leadership. These three behaviors persisted regardless of region, territory, or sales role, suggesting that they are foundational ingredients for success.” Ways to support customer focus:
- Use the Important people list for key external contacts, which enables immediate notification of email from them, more efficient responses to their requests, and reminders to schedule time to connect with them.
- Create a shared Teams channel with key customers for direct, informal chats and prompt responses to urgent requests.
For best practices and how to track time with your most important external contacts, see Best practices for customer collaboration.
Promote coaching and development
Manager one-on-one (1:1) time can improve engagement and job performance, while lack of manager coaching can cause employee disengagement and attrition. According to How to make your one-on-ones with employees more productive: "One-on-ones are one of the most important productivity tools you have as a manager." Ways to keep employees engaged:
- Use Insights to schedule 1:1 time, receive reminders to do so, and follow up on tasks related to direct reports.
- Require managers to schedule recurring 1:1 meetings with their direct reports for 30 minutes at least twice a month and hold them accountable for achieving that goal.
For more best practices and how to develop a 1:1 conversation series, see Best practices for manager coaching.