According to a recent USA today article, you could be hurting brand loyalty by asking your customers to fill out “another” customer satisfaction survey. Consumer fatigue issues should have us all rethinking how we measure brand loyalty. Here are a few consumer quotes to highlight consumer complaints:
- “I can’t remember the last time I bought a fast-food hamburger or a sandwich without seeing a request for a survey on the receipt. I don’t always have that much to say about a purchase.”
- “I resent the assumption that I’m interested in helping this company beyond making a purchase. Giving them your money is enough”
- “When the survey-taker can’t veer from a ‘totally satisfied, somewhat satisfied, not satisfied’-style script, its impossible to see how they could ever be of any use.”
- “I don’t mind being asked for input on such a big-ticket item as a car or a cruise. But ‘my goodness, after an oil change?’”
- “It often makes more sense to comment on (travel) sites than to take surveys. ‘This way, both potential customers and management can benefit.’”
At the heart of the issue is a gap between consumer media habits and data collection trends. Consumers are reading and posting feedback at their favorite websites or engaging in brand discussions via social media; while researchers continue using traditional survey methods and struggle with social media technology and inaccurate data mining tools.
Here are three ideas on potential new approaches for customer satisfaction feedback:
- Use the approach Godaddy took on a recent call. They simply invited me to provide comments via email, website or social media and even provided me a specific person to contact. Even better if they would have offered an incentive.
- A new beta-site called suggestionbox.com allows customers to provide feedback in a suggestion box format. Customers can select a specific retail location to post to. They can also view comments from others and companies can review and post if/when a suggestion is implemented.
- For more in-depth information, we’ve found great success recruiting panels customers to participate in a private Facebook group. Participants find it easy and enjoyable to provide feedback, and a panel can be set up for multiple weeks so consumers can move beyond transactional feedback to competitive comparisons or even co-creation of new and improved product or service solutions.
What do you think companies should do to better approach brand loyalty and customer satisfaction measurement?
Tags: brand loyalty, customer satisfaction, data collection trends, survey research
Research done right is a positive experience for respondents, and makes them better, more loyal customers. I say that based on analysis at several companies where I have worked. The problem is research done wrong, and that includes too-frequent invitations to take a survey, too-long surveys, too-rigid surveys that don’t let respondents express their likes and dislikes, etc. Bad surveys alienate customers. They also discourage future participation in market research.
Anyway, it’s not that traditional techniques are bad and new techniques are better.
Thanks for your thoughts Ken. I thought I’d share some other comments posted on Linked In:
Group: Product Development and Management Association
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
Monika, Wow, Outstanding post! As a consumer, I’m blasted from every retailer and “etailer” with a survey. It is draining.
My NPD side is a bit skeptical of reward or incentive based engagement solely. The methodology has it’s time and place. The customer driven side of me is not a mutually exclusive” fan of Net Promoter scores. It doesn’t tell me anything new or what to do or is not always actionable. Do you ever find Disambiguation and a focus shift in Industries: with primary emphasis going to Detractors only. I really want Promoter’s Ideas as well.
While the need to measure qualitative and quantitative feedback is clear, data collected but not being used is rampant. Many companies have Enterprise software flexible enough to view trending.
Your present Fantastic ideas with “safe focus groups”, “panel research”, and “competitive landscapes” with FB and electronic Suggestion boxes”. These seemingly reduce collusion dynamics.
On the front end; are we “Tazing” consumers into overwhelming benefits of goods and services? I want to know how perceptions of my Brand, Experience, Satisfaction, and Goods and Service Needed. Oh and margins!
If it’s measurable it’s manageable. But gosh, are we measuring too much…indeed? I’ll be following this to garner insight on agile modeling, ideas, and measurements.
Posted by Jim
Group: Front End of Innovation
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
Hi Monika- I would look at how Adobe, Bosch, and Hess are collecting customer feedback in the form of targeted challenges where they seek ideas and continual feedback on products & services. See http://www.ideas.adobe.com and Bosch- http://bit.ly/wB6S3w and Hess with their Idea Bank and Facebook integration to collect ideas at the place where customers are most: http://ideas.hessexpress.com/ideabank and https://www.facebook.com/#!/HessExpress?sk=app_147090742053706
Posted by Janelle
Group: Product Development and Management Association
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
I agree. Keeping in mind that you are just one company working with this customer. I am a firm believer in “talking with your customers” to guage feedback. Another important point is what companies do with customer satisfaction surveys….do they take action where appropriate or do nothing.
Posted by lynn
Group: Market Research Marketing Professionals Group
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
I think if we don’t continue to push the envelope in data collection we stop learning so yes it should continue to reinvent itself.
Customer satisfaction does not translate into loyalty so they often need different measures. The former maybe through social media analysis and other in store, online measures the latter maybe best using strong customer sales data analysis but only taking the simple Recency-frequency approach but that is an Ok place to start.
Posted by Shane
Group: Market Research Marketing Professionals Group
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
Doesn’t anybody just talk to their customers anymore? Survey, focus groups, social media, communities… all fine. But there’s nothing like looking a client in the eye over a cup of coffee and asking them, “How are we doing?” “What can we do better?” “Why did you choose us?” “Why did you leave us?” Every senior exec at a company (regardless of function) should sit down with a dozen clients every year and just talk to them. It’s amazing what you’ll learn…
Posted by Steven
Group: Market Research Marketing Professionals Group
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
The first thing in attaining customer satisfaction is to interact with them closely and personally and find out their comments and perspective about your products and services which may be discussed verbally and in written (customer survey). The best and newest way is to get customer feedback through social media sites and other online methods such as video or email marketing. Loyalty can only be retained if you provide best possible performance and quality services with minimum of fuss. Only then customer will be retained. Reinvention should be thoughout plan only when if it perfectly works.
Posted by Adnan
Group: Voice of the Customer
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
I agree totally. Our clients find that using surveys services such as ourselves (www.virtuatel.com) that are totally focussed upon gathering feedback immediately after a transaction, via telephone, email, web and SMS based offers, is the best way to avoid “fatigue”. Make it relevant to an event and customers will appreciate the offer; Make it irrelevant and (as is SO often the case) far too long a survey and you will get a low, unrepresentative response.
Posted by Alan
Group: Voice of the Customer
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
I would agree with Alan that customers are much more open to providing feedback when contact very soon after a customer experience, especially when contacted by an empathetic, “real” person that is authentically interested in their feedback.
Posted by Rob
Group: Voice of the Customer
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
If done well and correctly, surveys can be very useful. What does it mean to do so well and correctly? First of all, make sure that fatigue is not part of the process- surveys should have dynamic intelligence built into them so that only relevant questions are asked. A respondent should on average complete no more than 25 questions and should do so in less than four minutes. Of the over 15 million surveys my company has deployed, our abandonment rate is less than 3% (industry numbers are in the 20-30% range). Universal incentives will bias the feedback-people will not be thoughtful, but would click thorough to get a coupon. Sweepstakes are a better option. We also have pattern algorithms to test for suspicious input; we also do consistency tests to check for thoughtful feedback. I can go on and on…the point I want to make is that conducting surveys is a science and not just a set of questions to deliver to a respondent for feedback. Indeed, many people are not willing to give feedback (especially if is after an oil change), therefore, when to deploy a survey and the number of responses one gets for a particular purpose are critical. And then there is this whole area of converting the feedback into actionable insights..oh well, that is for another time.
Posted by Mohamed
Group: Voice of the Customer
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
Good article. While I agree that over soliciting your customers for feedback can be a negative, I don’t think it is wise to eliminate surveys entirely. Introducing more intelligent business rules behind who gets a survey and when can help you keep your customers engaged and add value to your survey.
It is important to keep in mind, though, that the surveys should be only one of many channels used to collect customer feedback and create a full view of your business from their perspective. Relying on on source of data for anything can be a dangerous proposition no matter what the topic.
Posted by Nick
Group: Consumer Insights Interest Group
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
I totally agree, though it really depends on the other actions of the company. If they manage to show in practice that they truly care and are interested in feedback plus are improving and listening to the customer, it might be a plus. However, if they send out over and over again surveys with little actions following, those surveys will harm the image more than help.
Posted by Diana
Group: Voice of the Customer
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
We find a lot of our clients look at Customer Journey Mapping to visualise how customers interact with their organisation in order to make a purchase or experience a service. They are then able to chose the most appropriate events to ask for feedback, our survey application integrates with the CRM system to trigger the sending of a survey which is relevant and in time with the last interaction. A complete history of all surveys sent is kept in the CRM system along with the feedback given. Our customers that set-up an event triggered Voice of the Customer program with their CRM platform are seeing very high response rates, increasing the customer satisfaction score by a high margin, decreasing customer churn and improving the bottom line. In short as long as the survey is relevant and timely keep doing it.
Posted by Andy
From blog Author Monika Wingate:
I think the 800# gorilla in the room is the volume of customer satisfaction work being done. Yes it is a good idea to identify the best time to collect the research, and to simply the questions and make them relevant. But if I get asked 5 times a day to fill out a survey – once at the coffee shop, once at the grocery store, and twice online when visiting websites, is it realistic to think I’m going to want to respond to any of them after a while? Especially since I’m already commenting on these topics on Facebook and Twitter. Maybe this is an issue of the “lens” through which we view the research. Rather than looking at it from a company centric point of view (eg. when and where are they interacting with me), maybe we should be looking at it from a consumer point of view (when and where are consumers giving feedback on their daily shopping behavior).
Group: Front End of Innovation
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
IMO inventors and innovators need to ‘feel, see, hear, experience’ their ‘things(inventions/innovations) in the context of reality – let’s just call it ‘no one can learn for you’ type of REAL RESEARCH – and our batting average will increase dramatically. Move away from ‘methods-speak’ to walking in the shoes and experiences of those you are targetting and your learning will increase and your innovative solutions will become real life changers. Too many intermediaries telling the inventors/innovators ‘this what what they said’ that cannot be translated into real improvements.
Posted by Jim
From blog author Monika Wingate:
Thanks for the great comments! Interesting that several of you are looking at a more qualitative approach vs. large scale data aggregation. That is the direction that my firm is taking right now, but I am curious to see if customer satisfaction research and open innovation techniques maybe merge at some point to get larger scale “crowdsourcing” like feedback as opposed to surveys with charts and numbers as output. I have no idea what that would look like, but it will be fun to watch the industry evolve…
Group: Front End of Innovation
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
Monika, I try to be careful to not use ‘methods-speak’ – like qualitative vs. quantitative vs ethnographic (and on and on), and focus on the outcome for the inventor or innovator. My experience as an engineer is that research done by others (you name the method) isn’t easily integrated into the holistic brains of these individuals and teams and subject to too much misinterpretation when they have to actually ‘make something.’ It’s the translational skill within an individual who has to use their skill to ‘make something’ (product, package, graphics, claims demo, etc.) where the research ‘insight’ gets lost if those people don’t have that holistically in their brain and belly. I love quantitative research when I’ve had the opportunity to input signifigicantly into the design of what is being measured, and to a complete understanding of what the analysis is showing me. For most companies the quantitative information is what will give them confidence in the investment they will need to make. Certainly as the information age gets better (more holistic, cheaper, faster) then we will need these tools highly integrated to give confidence to rapid prototyping. Like you, I look forward to these Evolutions.
Posted by Jim
Group: Consumer Insights Interest Group
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
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Posted by Robyn
Group: Front End of Innovation
Discussion: Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?
I’m with Jim. So much data is inactionable… I think we need to start with the end point, “what do we want to do with data”. That will determine appropriate collection methods, and perhaps more importantly, the format or means in which data is communicated to make it actionable for a variety of audiences. I’m sure we’ve all seen situations where the development group procured its own research, marketing theirs… each sees what they want but neither serves to align the 2 groups to an ‘initiative’.
Posted by Tim