The importance of gathering customer feedback can never be understated. That being said, collecting feedback is only the beginning. The important thing is the execution or following up on the insights provided by the feedback.
In the Gleansight benchmark Report on Customer Feedback Management conducted in November 2011, 84 percent of the top performers said that getting feedback data into the right people’s hands in their organization is the most critical challenge they face.
The basic task is to ensure that the feedback reaches the right person, the one who is responsible for the issue. Automation helps to streamline and quicken the process, but the machine may analyze the keywords incorrectly and direct the feedback to the wrong person. The first task is to educate all team members across the board about the importance of feedback. This helps ensure that feedback either goes directly to the person responsible as quickly as possible, or is redirected to the appropriate authority.
For example, rather than the accounts manager handling a complaint regarding product pricing by issuing an evasive and cursory remark, i.e., “We will look into it”, or returning the chat session back to the help desk, he should redirect the session to the marketing manager or the marketing executive who concluded the deal.
Focus on negative feedback by providing negative feedback to the right team and generating customizable alerts that quickly contact disgruntled customers in order to make inroads concerning complaint resolution.
Finally, many companies make the mistake of trying to quantify and measure everything. Customer feedback is only partly quantitative, and it is best to process the qualitative aspects of the feedback or risk losing the true meaning of it.
In other words, receiving feedback from your customers is a process that needs to be analyzed and improved in order to guarantee the best possible use of the feedback received. Are you asking your customers for feedback over the right mediums (phone, email, social media, etc.)? Is the feedback going to the right person in your organization? Are you creating a benchmark for analyzing the quantitative feedback received into a qualitative, insightful report? By asking these questions, you can greatly improve the process of receiving and responding to feedback, as well as creating a better experience for your prospective and current customers.
