Survey Says? CallMiner Rings the CX Bell with New AI-Powered Customer Feedback

If you’ve ever watched the TV game show Family Feud (I’m dating myself with this reference, but it’s been through multiple reinventions over the years), then you know how heated the competition can get. 

Sure, it’s all in good fun. But I think a few members of the losing teams have been unceremoniously “left out” of their family wills – all for missing one stubborn survey question.

Some of those questions were strange, to be sure. But surveys have long been a key tool for unlocking the hidden gems of our cultural sentiment. And in these hallowed halls of CX, relevant feedback is the prize every brand is after, giving them essential customer insight to enhance products and drive growth.

But let’s be honest: A lot of traditional customer feedback methods are broken. Brands pump out survey after survey, soliciting responses that rarely show up. And when they do, the substance can be shallow at best. 

In an era where customers interact across countless digital touchpoints, why are we still relying on old-school tactics to understand them? Isn’t this something to feud about?

This is where CX tools like CallMiner have carved out a niche with AI-powered conversation intelligence. The company’s Eureka Platform helps connect the dots between interactions, insights, and action – providing deeper, more holistic customer intelligence to deliver better experiences. 

Eureka analyzes a wide range of omnichannel interactions (think phone, email, social, and more) with its advanced AI, and turns it all into organization-wide insights that power contact center experiences. This includes everything from real-time guidance to brand sentiment. It also covers features like call center speech analytics, where CallMiner has shown up as a Leader on the Gartner MQ for that category.

Now, the company is adding another layer of “smart” to its family of tools. CallMiner Outreach is a new feature built on advanced analytics and AI that enables businesses to connect with customers in more meaningful ways. That extra punch of power can help strengthen relationships, tap the voice of the customer, and uncover actionable insights that drive enterprise-wide benefits.

CallMiner Outreach leverages its AI capabilities to deliver personalized, contextual surveys and customer engagement campaigns. With it, users can gain a deeper understanding of each interaction through CallMiner’s conversation intelligence – providing impactful CX insights to improve customer journeys, strengthen loyalty, and increase customer satisfaction. 

“Today’s survey vendors are stuck in the past, only thinking about the traditional way to execute surveys,” said Bruce McMahon, CallMiner’s Chief Product Officer. “They are not considering whether those surveys are valuable to and personalized for customers, and if responses are providing meaningful business insights. CallMiner Outreach goes beyond simple surveys and traditional feedback methods by leveraging AI-driven insights from customer interactions to improve the quality, relevance, and efficiency of feedback collection and analysis.”

Is there a customer feedback crisis?

Maybe. The answer to that question hinges on how brands weigh the value of their solicited and unsolicited feedback and whether the juice is worth the squeeze. CallMiner has been studying this question with deep interest for quite some time, distilling and publishing their research annually.

According to the company’s 2024 CX Landscape Report, 64% of global organizations said that all – or in some cases, the majority – of the customer feedback they collect is solicited. They also uncovered that organizations are collecting an equal amount of unsolicited and solicited feedback: About 25% in 2024 versus 20% in 2023. 

How are they doing this? Survey says: Surveys. That’s right – CX leaders are still relying primarily on traditional survey tools to solicit feedback from customers. On one hand, that makes total sense, as many organizations have invested significantly in their survey infrastructure. However, according to CallMiner, the persistent reality of low response rates and a lack of meaningful insights isn’t translating into a worthwhile ROI.

Reaching out with Outreach

As part of CallMiner’s robust Eureka Platform, Outreach is the industry’s first AI-powered customer feedback tool that triggers outreach based on specific interaction characteristics. This is a novel approach, as it does not rely on general interaction alone. Rather, it combines insights from unsolicited interactions – like those in a contact center – with solicited feedback for more intelligent, targeted surveys and customer engagement initiatives.

How does it work? Just as you might expect, given the scope of CallMiner’s other products. Outreach analyzes phone calls, social media, online reviews, emails, and other interactions, empowering CX and contact center leaders to personalize the outreach mechanisms. This can be expressed in the form of surveys, quick-response forms, marketing offers, and more – all aimed at addressing and resolving exact customer issues. 

Outreach’s real potential lies in its AI-powered insights, which provide unmatched customer connections. Its AI-powered surveys and campaigns can be tailored based on specific customer interactions and triggered by specific events. Closed-loop feedback also enables more personalized, insight-driven experiences that build trust and loyalty – as well as improve issue resolution and reduce churn.

By unifying CX measurement across multiple channels, CallMiner Outreach gives you a complete, holistic view of your customer. This allows you to tap into sentiment from all your touchpoints and take action. You can also more fluidly connect what’s happening in your contact center with your broader CX initiatives.

Along with the benefits of automating your outreach initiatives and analysis, it also activates your ability to make faster decisions with AI fueling your efficiency. Taken together, Outreach ensures relevance, timeliness, and improved customer outcomes.

CallMiner’s CPO McMahon calls this “The future of CX.” 

“CallMiner has always enabled organizations to combine unsolicited and solicited feedback in a single platform to gain a comprehensive view of the customer,” McMahon said. “With CallMiner Outreach, we’re delivering the native capabilities needed to execute faster, more intelligent feedback campaigns directly within the CallMiner platform.”

Availability and pricing

CallMiner Outreach is in early availability for both new and existing customers. You can register to watch a new product overview video or request a demo from their website.

In terms of pricing, CallMiner plays it close to the chest. This is enterprise contact center and CX analytics software, so it’s going to be calculated on a number of variables. According to its G2 page, there’s some flexibility based on a volume or seat-based paradigm. For more information or to contact a representative, visit their website. 

Why it matters

With the evolution of Outreach, both CX and contact center leaders can now seamlessly integrate customer feedback with an industry-leading conversation intelligence platform.

On the customer experience side of the ledger, Outreach delivers a holistic understanding of the customer’s behaviors – something we’re paying close attention to across other analytics and CDP platforms as well. It effectively streamlines feedback loops and improves key engagement metrics to impact retention and loyalty. This includes things like your net promoter score (NPS) and customer satisfaction (CSAT) rating.

For contact centers, there are a multitude of benefits. Outreach enhances the connection between operational efficiency and customer satisfaction, improving key metrics such as average handle time and first contact resolution, as well as agent performance and productivity.

Viewed through our CMS lens, customer feedback is an essential component in the omnichannel landscape. Contact centers are critical touchpoints, and facilitating feedback to maximize value is key – particularly if it might influence content and digital experiences on any level. 

CallMiner is right at home with CRM platforms like Salesforce and experience management tools that are essential layers in the digital stack. The company's leadership with AI-powered conversation intelligence could be a key evaluation point if you’re integrating contact center services as part of your overall strategy. It also plays nicely with other call tracking and analytics platforms like RingCentral and CallRail. 

One more point: I like how CallMiner is driving thought leadership and innovation around agentic AI in the call center, trailblazing solutions to streamline analytical tasks. Call centers are an area where AX is having a profound impact, and CallMiner is shaping a strong position with its thinking in this area. Definitely something to consider in your evaluation process. 

Surveys are still a relevant part of the customer feedback family. But with tools like CallMiner Outreach, there might be a little less to feud about.

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