9 tips to use customer feedback successfully

The voice of customer is more important than ever. Customer feedback provides insight into how well you are meeting your customers’ expectations. Essential for organizations that want to be customer-centric. In this blog, we give you 9 short and practical tips on how to effectively use feedback to improve the customer experience based on it.

Tip 1: Determine the right KPI for customer feedback

There are several KPIs for customer feedback. Which one you use depends on the issue. It is important to use an appropriate score for each process. Suitable KPIs are:

• NPS (Net Promoter Score): recommendation score
  The Net Promoter Score measures the loyalty of your buyers, based on a simple key question. It looks not only at the product delivered, but also at the connection a customer has with a company. In doing so, it looks back and forward.
• CES (Customer Effort Score): how much effort the customer has to make
  The Customer Effort Score shows how much effort the person had to make to get a question or problem solved. Think about completing a purchase or being helped at all. Great for collecting experiences about your service.
• CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score): the satisfaction
  The Customer Satisfaction Score excels in its simplicity, with its clear and straightforward scoring system. It is a score in the form of an absolute number, on a 10-point scale. This makes it easy to make comparisons or measure developments.

CYS’ software allows you to collect feedback in multiple ways. Think carefully about when you want to use which KPI.

Tip 2: Short customer feedback questionnaire

Customers like convenience. Therefore, even when asking for feedback, keep it simple to save neither effort nor time. After all, a long questionnaire deters. At CYS, we use a 3-question survey method based on the Root Cause Analysis methodology. This powerful and short questionnaire gets you to the core through a score and two follow-up questions. This gives an instant analysis of the customer!

Tip 3: Leverage existing customer data

As an organization, you have an awful lot of customer data. Take advantage of that. Analyze your internal data files and connect them to the feedback you receive. Then you don’t ask unnecessary questions and the right information is released that can be translated directly into follow-up actions by department or at the individual employee level.

Tip 4: Customer feedback as a basis for improvement

Have a clear and well-organized priority chart by department or branch so you know which buttons to turn to improve the customer experience based on feedback.

CYS quickly and insightfully displays what is going on with your customers but also which category deserves the most attention. For each category, you can see what answers were given. This way, you can implement immediate improvement actions.

Tip 5: Capitalize on positive and negative customer feedback

Instruct each employee to follow up on positive and negative feedback. Set out follow-up actions for different situations and have the employee pick it up individually. Proper tracking of customer feedback (closed feedback loop) is important for a better customer experience. One-on-one follow-up with both detractors and promoters really makes a difference.

Tip 6: Don’t focus too much on the score

Don’t just focus on a high score! If you don’t know why a customer gives a high or low score, you have a very limited knowledge and background. Indeed, the open-ended question and follow-up questions reveal the most about the signals why. Implementing the customer feedback system in your organization will automatically cause the score to go up, provided you instruct employees properly and let feedback live in the organization.

Tip 7: Get input from your open-ended responses

Just going for a high score is not enough. Answers from follow-up questions after the score are often of greater value. The customer talks about the story behind the score, and this form of storytelling is perfect for seeing where an organization’s pain points lie. The emotion of the customer is also visible in this, which you as an organization can respond to together with your employees. Make an impact through open-ended answers!

Tip 8: Involve employees in customer feedback

Involving the individual employee in customer feedback increases enthusiasm, energy levels, structure and challenge among your employees. Make feedback live among employees. Let managers facilitate but get employees to work on the feedback given themselves!

Tip 9: Collect customer feedback continuously

Continuously collecting customer feedback makes all the difference. By asking your customers’ opinions at different levels on a daily basis, you will gain clear insights into their wants and needs. By being able to channel the collected feedback directly to the individual employee for follow-up actions, you are well on your way to becoming a customer-centric organization.

Also collecting customer feedback?

Implementing customer feedback in the organization is not easy, but it is achievable for every company. After all, customers are the heart of your organization, so listen to the voice of customer!