The ideal customer feedback programme

Checklist for the ideal customer feedback programme

Designing the ideal customer feedback programme for your own business is essential when you consider there are so many options of how to effectively gather customer feedback, share that with the business and then act upon that feedback in an impactful manner.

Built upon Customer Champions’ extensive knowledge of building successful customer feedback programmes over the last 30 years, particularly in a Business to Business environment, we have developed a checklist of items that should at least be considered. Clearly with each individual business some of these will be of greater significance than others.

To help structure this we have then divided the checklist under the following group headings:

  • Customers
  • Measurement
  • Data usage
  • Communication
  • Employees

Customers’ role in the ideal customer feedback programme

We have deliberately started by looking outside at customers as we see too often the starting point is what the business wants rather than considering how to ensure the customer maximises their benefit through participation, after all without them there is no data, and very probably no business!

  • How easy is it for your customers to provide feedback? This covers both ‘proactive’ gathering feedback such as surveys, and ‘reactive’ feedback such as customers raising issues through channels such as account management and project management.
  • Do you have a representative view of all key customers? Are you sure that you have access to all key contacts within key customers, and not just contact details that have been provided via account / project management? Also do you have a clear understanding on how these views may vary across multiple contacts within a single customer?
  • Are you gathering insight on all key points of contact / touchpoints that the customer has with the company to ensure you are getting a complete picture of the customers’ journey, rather than just those that are easier to collect feedback on?
  • Do you ensure that your customers see the value in providing the feedback and do not feel it is too onerous on them?

Measurement’s role in the ideal customer feedback programme

  • Have you identified a single overall measure that links to your overall strategy?
  • Are you able to identify the key drivers of customer’s perception and your overall single measure?
  • Do the attributes that you are measuring represent what is important to customers?
  • Is what you are looking for feedback on using customer language rather than internal terminology?
  • Are all attributes you are seeking customer input on owned by key decision makers within the business to ensure follow up actions?
  • Can you track performance changes over time?
  • Does the frequency and volume of feedback support the needs of the business, neither overwhelming it with data nor leaving significant gaps?
  • Can different data collection programmes be linked or is each data set looked at in isolation?
  • Do your measurements provide KPIs that link to your business strategy?

Data usage’s role in the ideal customer feedback programme

  • Does the analysed data provide employees with easy to understand feedback in a format that can be used by them to improve the customers’ experience?
  • Does the feedback act as an effective input into a root cause analysis framework?
  • Can the data being collected be segmented to reflect key customer groups / characteristics?
  • Are you analysing qualitative feedback as much as the quantitative feedback available to you?
  • From your analysis are you able to identify both competitive advantages and disadvantages?
  • Where possible and where customer approval has been sought, can you identify and follow up on customer specific issues or opportunities?
  • Are your Sales and Marketing teams maximising the value of the feedback available to them?

Communication’s role in the ideal customer feedback programme

  • Is it easy for employees to engage with the data and the analysed findings?
  • Can the findings and related follow up actions be easily communicated to customers?
  • Have other stakeholders been identified and effectively communicated to?
  • Does the insight available allow the Executive team to not only identify key areas for improvement but they can report and track changes and their impact upon the customer / business?

Employees’ role in the ideal customer feedback programme

  • Are employee objectives linked to improving the customer experience?
  • Are employees empowered to deliver and develop the customer service strategy?
  • Have you established a link between your customer feedback programme and employee feedback programme?

 

Underpinning all of the above is the need to have clear objectives and timelines for your customer feedback programme and ensure that that you have senior management proactive support to it.

This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, or indeed one where every question is applicable to every business, but it will provide a framework to review your current programme and how it could be improved.

Next Steps

If you would value an independent assessment of your current programme without any commitment on your part please do get in touch.

 

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