It is becoming less and less rare that, after having had to contact a call center for whatever reason or having carried out an Internet management, we receive an invitation to participate in a quality or service survey in our mailbox. to the client. As marketing professionals, we all recognize the importance of having feedback from our clients and thus be able to take actions according to the information obtained.
It is good to see how these practices are becoming more common and are having a significant presence in the activity of companies. But on the other hand, the lack of personalization of the surveys, together with poor management and poor management of the times used, sometimes leave much to be desired and cancel the benefits and expectations generated by these practices. Gathering the customer’s feedback effectively is not an easy task and, if done improperly, can have a negative impact on the satisfaction of our customers in their relationship with us.
Below I will discuss a series of common practices in many of the companies and organizations that usually solicit opinion from their clients, many of which can even be upsetting from the client’s perspective, as well as suggestions and good practices that can be Usefulness when working with surveys:
Questions “one size fits all” or the “coffee for all”.
The interviews or surveys can not only contain generic questions but must be focused on what you want to know or have an opinion about. It is not uncommon to receive surveys in which we find questions that have nothing to do with the content of the call that we have been able to make to the company, or with the service we have used. Not only is it frustrating, it is also a waste of time for both parties. Companies need to have a solution that generates short, dynamic questionnaires, with questions determined by the context, and that allow the capture of the largest amount of information relevant to customers, regardless of the contact channel used.
Request the feedback long after the original interaction has taken place.
Consumers interact with companies on dozens of occasions about multiple products and services, making it difficult for us to keep in mind each and every detail related to each occasion. Sending an email or making a phone call three days later can mean a low level of response or little relevant information. By engaging our clients right after each interaction with our agents, whether through IVR, web and / or email services, our organization can benefit from information in time and a volume of responses that is much higher than what would be achieved days or weeks later.
And sometimes, we also find those companies that request our opinion about their services, even before using them. Who has not entered a web page and, without time for anything, a window has appeared asking us about our experience with them?
Neglect the value of open answers.
In the same way that it is interesting to know if our client would recommend our company, it is to know their opinion in their own words. The open questions open the door to a more detailed knowledge of the experiences and opinions of our clients and allow us to incorporate to the survey, and listen, the authentic “voice of the client”. To get the most out of the answers to the open questions, companies may consider having programs, such as those that Verint offers, of automatic analysis of structured or unstructured data present in text and voice interactions, in any of the means used. for this as telephone conversations, online chat or social networks,
Offer prizes or incentives for answering the questionnaires.
Perhaps this helps to increase the level of responses, but we run the risk of falsifying the result. Normally, those people with more time or motivated only by the prize or the incentive, are usually the most active and participatory in this type of award-winning surveys and, it is possible, the result is focused on that type of client less interesting for our company .
Get the feedback and do nothing after.
This is, with all certainty, the worst of the “deadly sins” of the polls. It is quite logical to think that someone in the company will read the comments and, logically, will decide to take actions to solve the problems or improve the procedures. However, it is not uncommon to find entities that collect answers and nothing else, staying there and not extracting any consequence or taking any decision. The market offers a whole series of tools that, analyzing these answers, can find trends and the origin of many of the problems that customers make us see. In addition, and taking an additional step, companies can make appropriate adjustments and inform customers of the steps and actions taken. It’s a way to show customers that their comments are taken seriously,
Of course, the good news is that for every company that does not extract its full potential from its customers’ feedback or misuses it, there are many others, hundreds, thousands, that have made great progress by improving this type of tools and applications. the day to day of its operation, and many of these companies already have this type of solution. Taking into account some of these practices, your company or organization will make sure that the feedback process is really involving your clients, as well as having all the information and content of great use for your business.