My colleague - Matti Airas - published this on Etuma's Blog (Click Here to read the original). I liked the thrust of the post. So, I thought I'd re-post it here and add my own commentary to it. So full credit to Matti and Etuma on this. My comments in Red.
At Etuma, we have analyzed hundreds of different feedback processes and formats and seen what works and what doesn’t work. For a feedback analysis company, we have become surprisingly expert in the process of gathering feedback. We have learned how to design a survey process that both maximizes the volume of open-ended feedback and provides concrete actionable insights.
1. Make it easy and ubiquitous to submit spontaneous feedback
Give customers the possibility to choose the channel they prefer. This includes text messaging, web forms, twitter, Facebook and email. Remember, the customer chooses the feedback channel, not you. Put the feedback URL everywhere. Don't be afraid to receive feedback, embrace it! Needless to say, I agree with all of this. But, I feel its particularly important to trigger "outbound" feedback gathering at key touch points, even if there is not a transaction involved. As a personalized appeal to provide feedback is more effective than a feedback link customers glance at in passing.
2. Run transaction-based surveys for key touchpoints
We like the transactional Net Promoter Score system (TNPS) but it can be any format as long as it is short and relevant for the experience (touch point) you are tracking. In transactional surveys the two most important things are timing and brevity: conduct the survey soon after the event using sms or email, and keep the survey as short as possible. Remember that NPS is not suitable for every transaction. For example, in customer support context, the Customer Effort Score (CES) is a better format. Again, I'm in complete agreement with this approach. Having an e-mail or text based process as your feedback gathering core is important as it allows personalized and follow-up-able feedback to be gathered.
3. Dig deeper when you don’t have enough information
Customer experience management (CEM) platforms enable you to run sophisticated rule-based surveys. You should use this functionality to find out e.g. why people stopped using a certain product or when their survey response didn’t explain the reason for their reaction (e.g. NPS score) or provide sufficient information for root-cause analysis. Amen to this. There are multiple ways to approach the need for additional "drill down" data. One is through rules based design. Another approach is to send follow-up surveys that incorporate original survey responses plus additional background data from your databases.
4. Run periodic relationship surveys on a representative sample
Spontaneous and touch point specific surveys often fail to get a comprehensive view on brand, competitor, pricing and marketing related issues. It is important to keep the relationship survey format as similar as possible to the transaction survey (although the periodic survey can have more questions). This gives you the ability to analyze customer feedback as a whole across all channels. Unless you have really large numbers of customers, say over 100K, today's feedback management systems make it easy to survey all your customers whenever you need to (typically 2x per year for relationship surveys).
5. Connect your company’s and competitors' Facebook pages and Twitter handles to the analysis service
More and more of the brand, product and service discussion is moving into social media. You need to connect your main social media channels into the feedback analytics process. Again, Amen to this. But, these channels are often not given the kind of serious attention that other processes are given. Gathering feedback from social media is important. Tying this type feedback into all the other feedback is critical.
6. My personal most important Rule about feedback gathering. Never ask a customer to give you information via feedback which you already possess (and which they know you possess).
Nothing turns off a customer faster than a survey seeking redundant information.
Don’t try to get an answer to every question in one survey. Create a continuous high-volume communication process, in which the complete picture is formed from many small fragments. This is the best advice of all.
