“Well done is better than well said,” advised Ben Franklin. As Franklin appreciated, follow-through is a challenge for most members of our species, and it’s certainly a stumbling block for businesses as far as customer feedback is concerned. According to the Temkin Group, six out of ten companies have a Voice of the Customer program in place, but very few of them actually take action based on the customer feedback they receive.
Tempkin reports that most companies get caught up in what it takes to obtain customer feedback, or sidetracked by endlessly crunching the mountains of data that customer feedback can provide. A few shocking numbers emerge as we get more specific about how most companies fail to take action on customer feedback surveys. Consider the following statistics from Aberdeen Group’s report The ROI on Customer Feedback:
77% of companies don't have established methods for responding to customer feedback.
With no method for responding to customer feedback, what’s the point of gathering it in the first place? From improving customer procedures to driving innovation, customer feedback can be a golden opportunity for any company. If your company is not among the 23% who have established methods of responding to feedback, you should seek out customer feedback management software that does more than provide aggregate data on brand feedback over time. Look for a Voice of the Customer solution that provides actionable techniques your managers and front-line employees can use to improve the customer experience right away.
85% of companies don't take immediate action on individual customer feedback.
Most organizations are still living in the dark days of market research, when technology limitations prevented companies from responding immediately to individual customer feedback. Today’s customers know better and if you can bother them with newsletters, mailings, and requests to provide their feedback—then it is imperative that you be ready to take real and meaningful action on what you learn from them.
79% of companies don't define best practices for utilizing and deriving actionable insights from customer feedback.
Unless you know where you’re going, a map is pretty useless. Similarly, all the customer feedback tools in the world won’t help your organization improve, unless you define best practices for utilizing customer feedback. Managers are busy, and a good customer experience consultant will provide guidance on the best route to creating the most engaging customer experience.
Marketing and Branding and all the “well said” materials in the world can quickly be unraveled by a disappointing experience. And while neither business nor people can be perfect all the time, good Voice of the Customer software should be guiding your company and employees toward a more frequent “well done!”
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