The Importance Of Followup
Posted: August 10, 2010 by Nate Bagley - Social Media Strategist
There are four general purposes for your company to be gathering customer feedback.
- Strategic Information at the Executive Level
- Operations Improvement
- Reward Employee Success
- Save Dissatisfied Customers
Strategic Information at the Executive Level
Gathering customer feedback is key when attempting to understand what your customers are thinking at any given moment. Seeing your business through the eyes of customers can help improve employee training, hiring processes, future product offerings, and so much more.
Collecting as much customer feedback data as possible will help you make the right decisions to keep your business flourishing, and your customers pleased.
Operations Improvement
Customer feedback can be used to improve your business in ways that will have the most significant impact on the bottom line. Customers will identify key drivers that are in need of improvement throughout your company.
As you make appropriate adjustments, your customers’ overall satisfaction and loyalty will increase along with revenues.
Reward Employee Success
After conducting over 50 million surveys, (over one billion questions answered), a significant trend stands out: The vast majority of feedback given to companies from customers is positive, not negative. There is a huge opportunity to pass that praise along to employees.
When employees are receiving praise, job satisfaction and performance both increase. This, in turn, leads to more satisfied customers.
Save Dissatisfied Customers
Collecting feedback is vital to help identify individual service lapses and unhappy customers. For larger companies, the primary target for recovering customers lies at the store level. The executive team doesn’t have the time or means to reach out and satisfy customers at the local level. That power lies in the hands of individual unit managers.
The faster you can single out and resolve negative experiences, the more likely you are to save valued customers, and build loyalty!
If your feedback isn’t reported in real time, or sent directly to the people who can take immediate action immediately, your ability to promptly identify and resolve issues is instantly diminished.
Summary
Although gathering customer feedback for your business is incredibly valuable to employees at the store level and executives alike, many companies do not make the best use of their feedback. Too many companies focus solely on high-level statistics gathered to guide their business without reaching out to the individual customers… the lifeblood of the company.
I have heard many complaints from people who have taken customer feedback surveys, and been disappointed when a company did not reach out to them to resolve an issue. Following up with customers after a negative experience, or even a positive experience for that matter, is one of the most valuable ways to build lasting loyalty.
As one customer said, “If you’re not going to do what I tell you, I’m not going to tell you anymore.”
Are you maximizing the value of your feedback?
Comments
6 Responses to “The Importance Of Followup”
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August 11th, 2010 @ 12:48 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Daryl Choy and Tim Sanchez, Nate. Nate said: If you're gathering customer feedbac, YOU NEED TO FOLLOW UP! http://ow.ly/2nOj1 [...]
August 11th, 2010 @ 9:14 pm
If I have had a bad experience and a company tries to recover me I actually will be more loyal to the company. It is weird how that works, but I feel like I have invested in the company and they are willing to invest back…we now have a relationship that has gone beyond money and is personal and emotional.
August 11th, 2010 @ 10:03 pm
Thanks for the comment, Jon! I actually had a similar experience at a restaurant a few weeks ago. My server forgot multiple things, including salad dressing on the side, and to refill waters. However, whenever it was brought to his attention that he had made a mistake, he worked twice as hard to make sure it was taken care of. His immediate response to his own errors made us like him even more.
Saving customers is one of the best ways to grow your loyalty. No doubt about it.
August 12th, 2010 @ 1:27 am
My wife actually had the bad turned to awesome experience. She was returning a rental VHS tape (yes TAPE) to Albertson’s and she was told the movie was melted due to sun damage. She asked to see the tape and the Manager said “no” and that she would have to pay $70 to replace it. She made some calls and swam upstream until she talked to “Steve”. Steve said she would meet my wife and go to the store to talk to the manager. Steve talked with the manager with my wife and looked at the tape. Turned out the case was messed up but the tape was fine. Even more interesting was “Steve”. His last name was Albertson. Yep, the CEO came to help resolve the problem. My wife is now super loyal to them and here I am talking about it still 15 years later.
August 13th, 2010 @ 9:10 pm
Excellent comment John. It’s amazing how one CEO’s mentality of staying in touch with customers has generated 15 years worth of loyalty from one simple act that only took him a few minutes.
One simple act is often all it takes.
December 16th, 2010 @ 9:18 am
[...] out to your customers at every opportunity. Ask them meaningful questions, follow up with any complaints, and use positive customer feedback to make giving props to employees a part of [...]