Adapted from Tricia’s Customer Service Success Blog. Learn how your company can effectively put customer feedback to improve support functions, develop new products or services, and satisfy customers. Read more of Tricia's blogs at www.parature.com/blog.

1. 6 Simple Tips for
Originally Posted on
March 30, 2012 by Collecting Customer
Tricia Morris
Feedback

2. Collecting meaningful
customer feedback to help
your organization improve
products and services is
no easy task.

3. The Aberdeen Group published a
benchmark report on customer feedback
management that examined the use and the
experiences of 300 enterprise
organizations. It revealed a stunning
disparity between best-in-class
organizations and those that were
considered average or below in customer
feedback management.

4. Best-in-class companies
are eight times more likely
to increase customer
satisfaction and 26 times 26 x more
more likely to increase likely to
customer retention than increase
average companies customer
because they maintain
better customer retention
relationships through
customer feedback.

5. Best-in-class
19 x more organizations are
likely to also 19 times more
increase likely to increase
customer customer-focused
focused innovation through
innovation their proactive use
of feedback data.

6. Personalized service, better communication,
innovation, correcting inefficiencies and
strengthening positive customer service
differentiators – they’re all vital for customer-
focused organizations to stand out from the
crowd. Therefore, pinging the Voice of the
Customer (VOC) regularly to gauge
satisfaction is a necessity. Here are 6 simple
tips for managing customer feedback surveys
to collect actionable data:

7. NUMBER ONE
LIMIT YOUR QUESTIONS
No one wants to complete a two-page
written response survey or fill-in bubbles on
rows and rows of almost-identical
questions. The average human attention
span is about 30 seconds (some sources
say it is as little as 8 seconds). Choose five
questions and make them count.

8. NUMBER TWO
BE SPECIFIC
Be specific in your questions so that your
organization can act on the feedback you
receive. Broad questions such as “how are
we doing?” or “how was your service
today?” do not provide actionable data for
improvement.

9. Instead ask, “what did you enjoy most about
your product or service experience? what
did you find least enjoyable? if we could
make one improvement in our product or
service, what should it be?” How about
“How would you describe our product or
service in one word?” Think of the great
things marketing could do with the positive
responses to this question.

10. NUMBER THREE
ASK CONSISTENT QUESTIONS ACROSS ALL
CHANNELS
Ask the same set of questions with the
same wording across all channels be it
phone, live chat, online, email, etc., unless
you’re specifically asking about customer
service channel preferences.

11. NUMBER FOUR
TRY TO CAPTURE FEEDBACK AT THE POINT OF
INTERACTION
This is when you will receive the most
honest and detailed response, when the
customer experience is top-of-mind.

12. NUMBER FIVE
CONSIDER PROVIDING AN INCENTIVE TO
COMPLETE A FEEDBACK SURVEY
Show your appreciation for your customers’
opinions by offering a discount code or
coupon following survey completion. Many
customers will never use it, but the gesture
is memorable.

13. NUMBER SIX
TAKE ACTION ON DATA AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
Those who have offered their feedback will
be waiting to see if your organization
actually follows up. Don’t disappoint by
gathering customer feedback and then
doing nothing with it.

14. MORE CUSTOMER CARE CONTENT
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN
• 5 Tips for Maintaining a Positive Business Image
Online (Even If You Receive a Negative Comment)
• 3 Questions Every Company Focused on Customer
Service Should Ask
• 5 Ways to Keep the Customers You Already Have
• Parature Feedback Feature Sheet
• Parature Survey Feature Sheet
FIND THIS CONTENT AND MORE AT http://www.parature.com/blog/