Customer feedback has always played a fundamental role in business success.
Providing data for operational improvement, motivating front and back-end employees, and creating meaningful connections with customers.
However, when it comes to developing a customer feedback program, most businesses struggle to manage and maintain them.
With a number of moving parts to consider, in this blog, we’re taking a look at the common challenges businesses face with a customer feedback program, and how to overcome them.
Let’s get started.
Un-Timely Action on Feedback
As we mentioned in our latest eBook, Customer Experience is Everything: Here’s How You Get It Right, taking action on customer feedback is integral to creating a positive experience. It not only deters negative sentiment but it resolves customer complaints before they have the chance to spiral out of control.
For many businesses, however, taking action on feedback in the moment isn’t a reality.
This is especially true if a business is utilizing manual processes to collect feedback. Using spreadsheets and toggling through a variety of channels, the entire operation becomes time-consuming and can take days or weeks to address.
This is not only inefficient but can greatly damage a relationship with the customer. In most instances not responding, or simply responding weeks later, can make the customer more even unhappy than before they wrote the feedback.
The Solution: Real-Time Communication Management
To combat late replies and negative sentiment, consider adopting a solution that provides real-time communication management. With real-time capabilities, businesses can acknowledge feedback and respond before the customer has time to dwell on the situation or spread negative sentiment. Further, with a sophisticated solution, you can even obtain granular data to respond accordingly.
Take the Loop Experience Platform as an example, all customer feedback and responses are provided in real-time within a consolidated inbox. Employees can have immediate access to the conversation and even see; sentiment, trending words, and tagged departments. Using these insights, the right team member can have adequate knowledge of the experience and communicate with the customer for a more tailored response.
Channel Management
For a business just getting started with its feedback program, dealing with a number of responses from an array of channels can get overwhelming fast.
Imagine for a moment customers writing in from Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, SMS and email, throughout the workday. If there are multiple people managing your channels, it becomes difficult to understand what channels are being managed, what feedback needs action, and which department to direct that feedback. Further, manually documenting unsatisfied customers or noting sub-par experiences are prone to error and can get lost in translation.
The Solution: A Consolidated Inbox
When it comes to managing copious amounts of feedback and conversations, having a dedicated customer experience solution can help streamline conversation management.
Using a solution like Loop, all conversations are consolidated into a single inbox. Whether Facebook, WhatsApp or email, your team can see the messages along with any details and take immediate action – so no customer conversation gets lost.
Having a customer experience solution also allows you to save time, and remove redundant tasks. Rather than having employees toggle through a number of tabs and apps, they can see all customer queries in a single platform.
Further, with a solution like Loop, tasks get even more streamlined with auto-tagging capabilities. Specific team members are flagged when feedback relates to their duties and they can respond in a more tailored manner. For example, if a guest writes in about washroom cleanliness, Loop automatically tags the cleaning department, so they have visibility and can adjust service accordingly.
Manual Data Collection
Data collection is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of a feedback program. Providing you with tips and tools on how to enhance the experience, you can leverage data to scale your business.
However, for many businesses, collecting data manually and making sense of it can be tricky. Manual data collection not only takes a lot of time but also leaves room for error.
Further, with manual data collection, you miss the opportunity to receive key insights such as; sentiment analysis, trending topics, and time to respond. Each holds key opportunities to enhance your feedback program and provide an unparalleled experience.
The Solution: Automated Data Collection
With a fortified customer experience solution, you save valuable time with automated data collection. Rather than sifting through mountains of data and attempting to understand trends, a sophisticated solution will automatically pull, categorize, and label feedback, so you can easily digest it.
Further, with a solution like the Loop Experience Platform, you not only gain actionable data, but you can easily manage the insights with custom dashboards. Select the insights that mean the most to you and your team and make them visible as soon as you enter the platform. It’s a great way to keep you motivated and your customer experience thriving.
Lack Of Investment
A common challenge for evolving any feedback program is the lack of investment from key stakeholders. While you may see the potential of growing your feedback program, your investors need to know where their capital is going.
Coming up with a solid use case can be difficult without the right tools in place, or the right insight. Leaving you tight on budgets and pressed for time.
The Solution: Data on Program Efforts
When it comes to making a plausible case for feedback program investment, data is an element investors can get behind. Making a use case for customer loyalty and experience, in addition to solid metrics that support the ROI in greater investment can be your key to a thriving feedback program.
Using a solution like Loop, you gain these insights and you can easily export data in the desired format to make your case. Whether PDF, PNG or JPEG, simply select the insights valuable to your team, export them, and place them in your brief. It’s a simplified way to spread knowledge of your customer feedback progress.
