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Getting value from customer feedback that is not always what it seems

Dec 11, 2024 Liezel Jonkheid, Consumer Psychology Lab


Getting value from customer feedback that is not always what it seems

 

Part 2

In our previous article, Liezel Jonkheid, Director and Founder of the Consumer Psychology Lab unpacked some of the reasons why customers might only provide half-truths in their service rating feedback, and why organisations must dig deeper in their customer surveys to ensure that they really get to the bottom of customer feedback that is authentic.  

 

So, given the potential half-truths offered by customers in their service rating feedback, how can feedback be used effectively?

Firstly, review these fundamentals of Voice of the Customer (VoC) programmes to improve customer experience:

• understand and define the purpose of the VoC programme,

• empower a support structure to manage and own the programme,

• include the employees in the design of the programme and feedback loop,

• get the timing of requested feedback from customers right,

• ask the right probing questions,

• choose the best suited channels for feedback, and

• ensure there is ownership to work and manage the feedback.

Secondly, actually use feedback to improve and align the service to customers’ needs and to engage with customers.

Top tips to get the best value from customer feedback:

• Don’t ask customers about their experience if there is no intention to do anything about the feedback. Consumers are survey-fatigued. Don’t waste your company’s and customers’ time if the purpose is NOT to improve the customer experience

• Use criticism to inspire problem solving and innovation. Use feedback for everyone to participate in problem-solving and contribute ideas to improve and build a learning culture.

• Build effective ‘close the loop’ pathways. When feedback is reviewed by cross-functional teams, improvements implemented will be embraced and the ‘threat’ of honest feedback for employees is reduced.

• Give customers an opportunity to explain their sentiments, problems and what they want from you with open-ended questions, which allows customers to express their thoughts in their own words. This provides qualitative insights that may be missed with closed-ended questions and predefined response options.

• Don’t ask questions only about what your company needs to track. Give customers the opportunity to share what they want about their interaction with your company. In this way, customers may point out opportunities to improve service delivery with easy to fix improvements.

• Respect people’s time and contribution to help your business improve.

• Fix the problems raised by customers and give them feedback on how you can solve it.

• Look at trends to identify internal system/process/people issues to fix.

• Be on the lookout for ideas to solve problems which would not be considered in the direct influence of your organisation, for cues to differentiate your value offering.

• Thank your customers for their support to help improve your business – and then improve your service.

• Avoid using customer feedback as a punitive mechanism for staff! It only inspires creative ways to manipulate the results – like asking customers for a positive rating. Position customer feedback as part of the learning culture in the organisation.

• Use compliments from customers to encourage best practice and team spirit. It’s as important to know what hacks customers off as to what makes them happy and impresses them. Learn from the bad and fix the problems, and build on the good and elevate them.

• Carefully consider the impact of integrating the VoC results with employee’s individual performance and remuneration results as it can instil resentment, fear of failure or exposure and encourage manipulation – none of which is conducive to improving CX.

• Integrate employee feedback in the VoC methodology and metrics.

 

Customer feedback, whether obtained through surveys, interviews, focus groups or spontaneous feedback, through many channels, provides organisations with precious gifts. They hold the insights for planning, the opportunity to fix known and new problems, and provide the right amount of “push” to justify making investments to change.

 

Careful VOC design will avoid leading questions, ambiguous language, or any other factors that might introduce bias or half-truths into the responses.  It is a process that involves careful consideration of the survey's purpose, audience, and methods used to collect and analyse data. Make very sure that the design of your VoC survey gets you the reliable, relevant, honest and actionable feedback you want and need from your customers to define and entrench your organisation’s true competitive advantage.

For more information visit Consumer Psychology Lab.
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