Most brands and businesses are aware of the benefits behind capturing feedback throughout the customer journey. Rather than waiting until the end of an experience to send a survey to the customer (which then requires analysis), many are instead asking customers about their experience as they go.
Why wait until I’ve got home from my holiday to ask about my booking experience? Ask me when I’ve booked.
In a world where everyone wants to know “how’s my driving?” and customers are constantly bombarded with feedback requests, companies want advice on the right way to do continuous improvement feedback so that they don’t bombard and overwhelm their customers.
The good news is, we've got the answers. Remember, continuous improvement feedback should be about starting a conversation with your customer. You don’t want to be that annoying guest in the kitchen at parties who doesn’t know when to stop…
Learn more about how one touchpoint can undermine a whole customer experience in our eBook: The Anatomy of a Great Customer Experience.
Here are our definitive 10 top tips on how to avoid the pitfalls of transactional feedback:
- Ask for feedback at the right time – always map the journey to identify the “moments of truth” where customers will have something to tell you, not just where you want to ask. Think about how customers might be feeling through the stages through of their journey, this is a true customer-centric approach.
- Don’t interrupt the journey – if there’s a risk that customers will use the feedback request to ask questions then it’s the wrong time to ask, e.g. don’t ask for feedback about making a booking before the customer has received their confirmation details.
- Don’t over listen – we use suppression rules so that customers don’t get another feedback request within a fixed time frame. As a rule of thumb, we suggest 7 days as a minimum and 30 days maximum.
- Don’t wait for feedback to tell you what you know – you shouldn't use a feedback request to capture feedback from customers about needing further information or asking for clarity. Instead, be proactive, update and inform customers when you have something to tell them and manage their expectations throughout the customer journey.
- Use the right channels – more and more companies recognise the value of SMS. Not only does it generate the highest response volumes (around 30%) it’s also the easiest channel because we all have our phones with us and we all respond to text messages faster than email. It also doesn’t interrupt the customer’s day, which is why response rates increase when customers get home from work or finish dinner.
- Ask the right questions – let the customer tell you what they want, not just what you care about. We all agree it’s important for customers to feel welcome when they walk into your store, but great service goes further than that. Don’t ask customers if a member of staff said hello. Rather, let them tell you how they feel and you'll learn if they didn’t feel very welcomed.
- Ask a consistent metric – ideally, you will be able to show a consistent score across the customer journey. This can be Satisfaction, Effort or Transactional NPS but you’ll want one metric which compares apples with apples throughout the customer experience.
- It’s all about the comments – this is where we generate the most insight. Customers will tell you both what you want to know but also what you didn’t. Pre-set questions leave very little room for the unknown.
- Be wary of additional questions – sometimes you’ll want to know more than just an overall score but be aware that more questions drive dropouts. For text message interactions we see a 5%-10% drop off for each additional question, and we never recommend more than 3! It’s the same for every additional survey web page and with most of us completing them on our phones, we're already limited by space.
- There is still room for relationship surveys – companies still want to track how their customers feel about their brand outside of the interactions they have, so relationship surveys still have a place. Our only advice is to review your questions with your transactional feedback in mind. Chances are, there’s a bunch of questions you already have the answers for…
By avoiding the common pitfalls of continuous improvement feedback you'll be able capture feedback that actually means something and effectively drive change on the behalf of your customers. It's critical for brands to get their heads around what kind of journey their customers are on so they can learn how to manage experiences better.
