Customer feedback allows companies to better understand what is working well and what areas need improvement. To deliver the best customer service, it’s important to understand how your customers feel and give them a chance to tell you why. But how efficiently does your brand collect this information? Here are seven best practices for taking a strategic approach toward collecting customer feedback.
Omnichannel brands mean omnichannel customer engagement, so it’s critical to ask for feedback on every channel your company uses. Surveys should be sent to customers on the channel on which they are most active, whenever possible, as it’s more likely to be acknowledged if the customer is already comfortable with that channel.
Customer feedback surveys may be sent at different intervals and for different purposes. For example, when sending a post-contact survey, a customer may agree at the start or end of an exchange with a customer service agent to complete a satisfaction survey detailing the experience they just had. This kind of survey allows a company to monitor and improve a specific agent’s performance as well as follow the case history of a specific client to provide better individualized service. With a periodic survey, customers may be contacted on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis to provide overall feedback, and this may be beneficial for the company’s strategic planning and marketing campaigns.
A customer may be highly satisfied with a brand and give the company a high score with only a slight criticism for a minor issue. In such a situation, it’s tempting to ignore the criticism and take pride in the overall positive score, but such a reaction is potentially harmful to a company. Every single negative comment should be taken seriously as they are valuable insights into how to make even a satisfied customer even happier with the brand. Don’t let any comments fall through the cracks, and consider every point an opportunity to make the customer experience even better.
Customer feedback doesn’t always reflect the work of customer service representatives but rather the efforts of the company as a whole. For this reason, it’s important to share feedback across all departments to improve the customer experience overall.
Make sure to ask the right questions and keep the survey concise. It’s best to ask a maximum of ten questions or else customers may not have the patience to respond. Use a consistent scale to make it easy to understand, and make the questions specific to the information your company needs. Lastly, allow customers to offer qualitative responses with a free response section-they may offer insights on topics your survey questions did not cover.
If a customer gives an overall low score, it’s worth looking into for more detailed information. In this situation, contacting the customer by phone is a good way to better understand their customer service needs as a call can humanize the experience for the customer-showing him/her that you care-while providing detail that cannot always be obtained easily on other channels.
Last but not least, use the information gleaned from surveys to provide a better customer experience!Many studies have shown that it costs more to attract new customers than to retain existing ones. Statistics show that it costs 6 to 7 times more to acquire new customers when one factors in the marketing costs involved in seeking potential clients, nurturing leads, and finally making sales. With customer feedback surveys, companies may better tailor services to their customers’ needs, foster brand loyalty, and offer an excellent customer experience.
