Customer feedback is critical for good business as it identifies strengths and blind spots in your customer experience. But, simply collecting feedback isn’t enough. You must analyze feedback data and take meaningful action to drive change.
In this Dreamforce session, we explored ways to quantify your feedback data and the different actions you can take that will not only improve customer relationships but also drive revenue to positively impact your bottom line.
We’ve broken down the session below by key slides and their accompanying scripts.
Customer experience is no longer just a nice to have
Delivering a great customer experience is more important than ever. But while 80% of CEOs think their companies deliver a great customer experience, only 8% of their customers agree. This discrepancy can lead to destructive business issues over time and have a crippling impact on your revenue.
Focusing on the customer experience may be the single most important investment a company can make in today’s competitive climate as it can be a key differentiator in a crowded space.
A great experience means meeting or exceeding expectations
So, how do you provide a great experience for your customers? Well, it goes beyond just your product or service. Great customer experience means meeting or exceeding the expectations of your customers during all interactions with your company.
But to know whether this has been provided requires an open dialogue with your customers. With a Voice of the Customer program, your customers have an opportunity to provide feedback so they feel valued and heard. It is the heartbeat of any CX program.
By keeping a steady pulse on customer happiness, you can build loyalty, prevent churn, and increase revenue.
Set clear goals and success metrics
But before you start collecting customer feedback, you need to establish clear goals and success metrics. What is it you want to learn? What problems are you trying to solve? Do you want to get more insight into customer churn? Do you want to get a better understanding of high effort areas for your customers that might be causing attrition?
Once you understand what you want to accomplish, you’ll then want to decide your KPIs or key performance indicators. These are quantifiable measurements used to evaluate the success and progress of your program.
While qualitative data is extremely valuable, KPIs like CSAT, NPS, and CES provide hard metrics against your customer pain points. Let’s examine each KPI a little closer.
Customer Satisfaction, or CSAT, measures customer happiness with your brand
Customer Satisfaction, or CSAT, is used to measure customer happiness after a specific interaction or event with your brand. It’s measured on a 5-point scale from “very satisfied” to “very unsatisfied.”
Scores are then added up and divided by the number of respondents for an average score. These surveys increase customer engagement, keep customers feeling invested in their experience, and prevent churn.
At GetFeedback, we recommend automatically sending CSAT surveys immediately after an interaction to garner top-of-mind feedback.
We also recommend using the channels that are best suited to your customers. For example, if a customer contacts your service team over Salesforce Chat then use that same channel to immediately collect feedback after the case is closed.
Net Promoter Score, or NPS, measures customer loyalty with your brand
Now let’s take a closer look at Net Promoter Score or NPS. This question captures customer loyalty by asking “on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely you are to refer us to a friend?” Responses then place customers into three distinct groupings: Promoter (someone who favors your brand), Passive (someone who’s neutral about your brand), or Detractor (someone who would not recommend your brand).
NPS is then calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters, so the final score can range anywhere from -100 to 100. With this insight, companies can find ways to leverage Promoters and turn Detractors into champions. This ultimately drives more revenue with returning customers and friendly referrals.
At GetFeedback, we recommend an automated NPS program rather than a traditional batch-and-blast approach. This means using Salesforce to send surveys at customer milestones— like every 90 days after their purchase date or a few weeks before their renewal date to spot at-risk accounts.
In doing so, companies can consistently check-in with customers without giving them survey fatigue. Plus, it makes feedback data much more manageable for your team.
Customer Effort Score, or CES, measures customer effort with your brand
Customer Effort Score, or CES, measures customer service a bit more holistically. Instead of asking customers to rate a service agent after an exchange, CES focuses on the level of effort customers have to put in to get their issues resolved.
Similar to CSAT, it uses a 7-point scale to calculate the average effort of your customers. This concept is gaining more traction in customer service circles and is particularly relevant if you support customers over multiple channels as this can increase friction and customer effort.
At GetFeedback, we recommend surveying customers on your help articles to understand how both content and discovery can be improved. We also recommend surveying customers after a support interaction to better understand the process of getting an issue resolved. In doing so, you can collect valuable insights that help your teams make data-driven decisions that inform organizational change.
Integrate your KPIs into Salesforce
Once you’ve decided on your goals and chosen your KPI, you’ll want to integrate your feedback program with Salesforce. This is a critical step because it connects your customer feedback with customer data so you have a holistic view of your customer experience.
With Salesforce, you can pull in unique customer details—like name, location, or purchase history—to tailor the survey experience and provide more context for your customers.
You can then push survey responses to the customer record in Salesforce so you always know where each account stands. Without connecting to Salesforce, your response data is stuck in a 3rd party platform where it becomes stale and unactionable.
Optimize the survey experience
At this point, you’re ready to start asking for feedback but it’s important to consider best practices. There are innumerable ways to go about this step; however, at GetFeedback we have some tried-and-true tips that have proven effective.
Consider the survey look and feel—design surveys to be aesthetically pleasing and optimized for any device. This ensures you’re getting responses, even when customers are on-the-go.
Ask the right questions—we’re always tempted to ask too many questions but it’s best to hone in on exactly what you need to know and keep surveys brief. This ensures you’re capturing meaningful and relevant data from your customers. We recommend a four-question framework: start with your KPI, ask for more clarity on that score, ask about other preferences to round out their customer profile, then close with an open text field.
Tailor the survey experience—as I mentioned earlier, Salesforce allows you to completely customize the survey experience. Not only can you bring in unique customer details, but you’re also respectful of their time by not asking what you already know. We also recommend using survey logic so you can take customers down different paths based on their responses.
Send surveys on the right channels—where you ask for feedback is just as important as how. Remember: it’s best to ask for feedback on the channels that work best for your customers—like email, chat, or SMS. If possible, keep the conversation in context. This instantly closes the feedback loop, which yields higher response rates and higher quality data.
Automate survey distribution—also mentioned earlier, we recommend an always-on feedback program so you can easily manage data in small doses.
Monitor feedback and trends
As your feedback data starts to build, you’ll want to closely monitor the results. In doing so, you’ll see critical patterns and trends that identify opportunities for improvement within your organization.
Don’t forget to also grant key stakeholders full access to the results. This allows for clear visibility so they can better understand the value of your VoC program.
Implement an action plan
Perhaps most importantly, but often overlooked, is an action plan. In fact, 43% of customers don’t leave feedback because they don’t think the business cares. This is a huge missed opportunity and illustrates why closing the loop with customers is so important.
Collecting feedback and measuring KPIs means nothing if you’re not taking action on customer responses. Not only does this show your customers you’re listening, but it also forces organizational change that drives more revenue.
There are two primary strategies to consider when building an action plan; however, not all feedback warrants the same action. The first is your 1-to-1 strategy. After a customer submits feedback, make sure they receive a prompt response from your team to acknowledge their feedback is valuable to your business. This is especially true for dissatisfied customers whose feedback demands immediate action to stop a bad situation from getting worse.
While this approach is incredibly valuable, it can be difficult to manage. To do this at GetFeedback, we use our Actions feature. This allows us to set up Email Notifications or Salesforce Tasks to surface time-sensitive feedback and assign specific actions to internal teams.
The second option is your 1-to-many strategy. How will you share your findings with stakeholders? How will your program resolve the problems you identified at the start and drive positive change for your business?
At GetFeedback, we regularly monitor our customer feedback and distribute monthly reports to keep our internal teams aligned. We also implement organizational change—like ongoing team training, proactive approaches to customer conversations, and updated help articles.
Whichever action you choose, make sure it ties back to the KPI you established at the start so you can measure improvement over time and track the ROI of your program. With customer feedback, you get more visibility into the customer experience so you can take intelligent action and drive more revenue for your business.