Voice of the Customer programmes are nothing new. But, despite this, many brands just aren’t driving their programmes beyond the basics. They’re sticking with the same processes and the same feedback mechanisms that they’ve used for years.
Now, there’s no reason to make unecessary changes to a succesful VoC programme. But we won't move forward if we choose to sit back and rely on old processes without the drive to review and improve the way we capture VoC. For example, consider how mobile has grown just within the last 5 years, it's emerged as an unrivaled channel for many customers, but brands haven’t changed their VoC proposition to suit this change.
So what can brands do to move VoC to the next level?
Stop having a one size fits all approach – one channel doesn’t suit how all customers like to give feedback
Just because mobile suits most of your customers, doesn't mean it's the right channel for all of them. What about social, email, telephone?
For example, some customers just don’t like giving feedback over social media, as they feel exposed expressing their views in a public space. Brands need to balance their desire to reach as many customers (as easily as possible), by remembering that what they think is convenient may not match with their customer’s opinion.
Stop asking for feedback without any form of follow up
Unsurprisingly, customers are fed up of brands asking for their opinion, their view and to ‘have their say’ without ever giving anything back.
For customers the time and effort spent responding to feedback requests can be frustrating when the brand does nothing with the information.
This inaction becomes even more pronounced with mobile as it is generally a more conversational, two-way mode of communication. Consequently, companies cannot use mobile to simply collect feedback through mobile, they also need to use mobile to respond to customers concerns directly and promptly.
Start to think beyond surveys
Survey fatigue isn’t new and it isn’t going away.
Customers are disengaged with long, drawn out surveys that don’t give them a chance to focus on the areas that really matter to them. Simple changes, like switching your survey out for a stripped down comments section allows your customers to provide a detailed answer - one which you can really use to improve your service.
Where you can, encourage customers to use their own words with answers. We strongly advocate letting customers give you a single score and then the ability to write their own thoughts and feelings in an open text box. This space allows you to capture exactly what matters to the customer without them being led by a question.
Stop focusing on Voice of the Customer strategy – think about execution instead
For many brands, the biggest challenge they have is focusing on strategy – at the expense of execution. The problem they have is spending months creating a detailed strategy document which ends up being out of date before it can be rolled out.
Our blog “Why Emotional Engagement Needs Execution, Not Strategy” explores this point in more detail.
Start using customer feedback to make real, impactful changes.
Prove that you actually respect your customers and take their opinions seriously by using their feedback to make big changes and small changes.
Orbit Group, one of the UK’s largest housing organisations, used to conduct telephone surveys with customers to monitor satisfaction. But the organisation found that advisors were often cherry-picking who to put through to the survey, depending on how the call went. The approach had low response rates and the process also resulted in disengaged staff.
Now, Orbit Group has changed its approach. Once contractors have completed their work, customers are able to share a comment and score on their experience.
And, after an interaction with a contact centre advisor, customers are asked if they’d like to share their thoughts via voice recording. These comments are analysed in real-time and presented back to the group in a Fast Feedback dashboard.
By taking this step, you show that you are a truly customer-centric business that listens and acts on feedback - making changes that impact CX in a truly positive way.
