"Closing-the-loop": Critical for Success, but hard to do

Closing-the-loop on customer feedback is considered "Critical for Success" by many people in customer facing roles. Yet, in practice it seems to be difficult to do effectively and consistently.

A couple of statistics from our recent survey:

• 87% of our respondents chose a relationship metric - "customer loyalty/satisfaction" as the #1 (75%) or #2 (12%) priority for their customer feedback.
• 74% say "closing the loop" is "Critical" or "Important" for their business' success
• 16% say they "always" close-the-loop on relationship feedback

Organizations seem to be particularly challenged with "closing-the-loop" effectively on relationship feedback. We think process issues are inhibiting effective follow-up on feedback and we infer from the data that two process issues are contributing factors:

- Connecting customer feedback with other customer data: i.e. Profile data, Customer value information and "Responsible internal actor" information.
- Determining an action to be taken on customer feedback, then routing the feedback data to the "Responsible internal actor" for action.

When we examined these issues some thoughts occurred to us about why they might occur:

• Many businesses collect customer feedback centrally via one or two internal departments, very often product marketing or customer support. But, "loop-closing" activities must be performed by other departments (Sales, Marketing, Shipping, Accounting, Etc.).
• Often, data collected is not designed to facilitate a "closed loop" process (i.e. market research), may have a very specific type of "loop-closing" process attached (closing a support case, for instance) or requires a decision from another department prior to loop-closing actions taking place.
• Relationship feedback in particular seems to suffer from these challenges, as its a simple matter to insert a satisfaction or loyalty question into a multitude of surveys. But, based on the feedback provided, complex to "close-the-loop".

In our opinion, solving these "Loop Closing" issues begins with a better planning process. When feedback is solicited a process with ownership for follow-up should be defined for each key piece of feedback collected. And, mechanisms should be employed that facilitate getting feedback data to the correct internal actors in a timely fashion. This is especially important in the case of relationship feedback, where "Closing-the-loop" is often not only respectful, but is a known driver of higher customer loyalty.

Experience: Closed Loop Customer Feedback Processes

We recently surveyed a group of mainly customer facing business people regarding their practices and processes for "closing-the-loop" with their customers who provide them with feedback. We asked respondents to categorize their experience on three dimensions of customer feedback - Transactional, Relationship and Product/Service. Some interesting data came back from the survey.

• 75% report customer relationship quality (loyalty/satisfaction) as their main feedback objective.


• 74% view “closing-the-loop” with customers as “Important” or “Critical for Success” to their businesses.


• Three main challenges surfaced to “closing-the-loop” with customers providing feedback:
  - Prioritizing customer feedback for follow-up action
  - Determining the appropriate type of follow-up to provide
  - Following up with customers in a timely fashion


• ~25% indicated they had well automated processes for “closing-the-loop” with customers providing feedback.


• 19% of respondents “Always” close-the loop” on Transactional customer feedback
  - 16% and 13% respectively report they “Always” close-the-loop on Relationship and Product / Service customer feedback
  
• In all cases, survey respondents reported more effective practices and processes for "loop closing" with customers when transactional feedback was referenced.

A couple of thoughts:

In interpreting the data, there appears to be a gap in customer feedback processes that inhibits effective “Loop Closing” activity. While most respondents realize the importance of, and measure for, customer relationship quality, they don’t regularly take the loyalty/satisfaction building step of “closing-the-loop”.

Three main challenges were identified to closing-the-loop activity. All three suggest process issues in dealing with customer feedback after it is received, especially when the feedback isn't transactional in nature. Significantly, over 20% of respondents report their main challenge as just identifying whom to follow up with. We think that these challenges speak to an inability to truly identify who feedback providers really are, as that information would make determining follow activity much simpler.

The survey shows that over 50% of all customer feedback is collected via internet based technologies (web forms, web survey, e-mail surveys) across all three dimensions measured. So, identity shouldn't (and the survey shows it isn't) be a primary challenge. However, it appears as though two issues exist:

1) Connecting customer respondent identity to other information about that customer that helps to determine how to best "close-the-loop".

2) And, once connected, getting the feedback information to the right person so prompt closing the loop action can take place.

Since a majority of respondents report they either "struggle with analyzing customer feedback for action" or use manual feedback analysis methods (spreadsheets), it would appear that for most organizations, better "loop closing" processes will need to start with combining feedback and feedback analysis into a more automated process.

The summary read out from our survey can be viewed at the link below.

https://webreports.questback.com/isawebrep/webreporter.aspx?auth=E0AD8A0B7A0D30BFE7929E04571BDEB20372E901&rid=1991386

4 Customer Experience Lessons from 2009

Its been the year of "Customer Experience"

Enterprises have been investigating, testing and piloting programs to assess and improve the customer experience. And, some best practices are emerging. Here are four "lessons" that we've distilled from the literature and our experiences this past year.

#1 - Start small and take the "long view".

In a recent report, Gartner Group predicted that only about half of the companies implementing Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) systems will succeed in operationally using customer feedback. In our experience, the data generated by even limited CEM monitoring can be overwhelming. Acting on the insights produced can be even harder. Tip: Don't try to do too much, too soon, in order to justify large investments in EFM technology.

#2 - Choose appropriate metrics and begin to survey customers systematically.

Measuring customer experience requires an appropriate metric. A number of good ones are available including NPS and ACSI. Tip: Survey all (or as many as possible) of your customers and then track how different subgroups score you based on your metric. It will be clear over time if your experience improving efforts are having an effect (you'll have data from "control groups").

#3 - The right feedback management process will help you improve customer relationships while providing a positive customer experience.

Feedback management systems help to manage the feedback process and to "close the loop" with customers after they provide feedback. Tip: "Close the loop" with as many customers as possible and especially with those that matter most to you. Doing so really pays off in happier customers who know you are listening to them.

We've talked about one of our customers - AIFS - and how they were able to leverage feedback with their "promoters" in ways that helped them increase sales (If you'd like a copy - use our request information link). They reached the right customer subgroup at the right time, closed the loop in the right way and produced powerful results.

#4 - Where Customer Experience is concerned, short term actions impact the long term.

Focus short term effort on areas with immediate needs but long term benefits. An example would be to quickly follow up a survey by individually contacting each customer that expressed any dissatisfaction. Solve their problems and gain their loyalty! Tip: Start with discrete customer subgroups that closely link to your "success" as a business.

This approach limits scope (and cost) of organizational effort, offers opportunity for fast payback and provides crucial learning opportunities for later, broader based, efforts.

Convert Loyalty Insights into Account Strategy Action

Optimizing sales effectiveness is a goal shared by all sales organizations....

By categorizing customers based on their combination of loyalty characteristics and revenue profile, you create a new tool for determining where to invest resources and what kinds of efforts to apply in given accounts. By applying loyalty enhancing or loyalty leveraging strategies to your accounts you improve sales effectiveness.

Objective: Migrate accounts towards the "Emulate" Quadrant. These accounts have high loyalty and high revenue value to your business. Who doesn't want more large and highly loyal customers?

"Emulate" accounts should be leveraged and promoted through references, PR, marketing and social media. Identify their loyalty drivers and your best practices for them and then replicate where possible in other accounts.

"Problem" accounts are low loyalty but have high revenue value. They are at risk. Diagnose and repair any issues. Pay close attention to their feedback and act on what they say. Doing so will improve loyalty and help protect revenue.

"Growth" accounts are your potential new revenue stars. They are low revenue but high in loyalty. Look for ways to expand your revenue footprint here.

"Decision" accounts are always a challenge because they require resources to make more loyal but don't currently offer the revenue to justify an effort. Future revenue potential (indicated by bubble size) should be used to influence action.

Convert Loyalty Insights into Account Strategy Action with QuestBack

Few Sales organizations effectively deploy customer feedback as a primary input to their account management process. By combining QuestBack with a loyalty metric, you can create effective account strategies that produce higher sales over time.

Many firms struggle to convert customer feedback into actions that will have measurable impact on customer relationships. QuestBack's product and service offerings are designed to help with this challenge. All are focused on making customer feedback processes highly effective for improving customer relationships - and the bottom line.

With QuestBack its easy to set up a "closed loop" feedback management process. And, research shows, asking customers for feedback and then acting on it increases loyalty. Here's a simple QuestBack based survey process you could use to incorporate loyalty feedback into your account management strategy.

• Design your survey questionnaire using "likely to recommend" (loyalty) questions
• Attach your customer profile data to the questionnaire (make sure it has a revenue categorization for each survey recipient)
• Launch the survey
• When data comes in, segment respondents (using filters) based on the combination of "likely to recommend" and revenue category, which you loaded into the survey from your customer database
• Take action. You'll know which of your customers fit in each category and actions will be almost self-evident based on the responses to survey questions
• Repeat and trend the data
• Compare with sales trends, the use to formulate account strategies and action plans

If you would like to learn more about QuestBack click on the link below and we'll be glad to contact you.

https://www.questback.com/demo_nash_stewart_qbbostonusa/please_contact_me/

You Are What You Measure

In Customer Experience Management (CEM), You Are What You Measure

An interesting recent article in CRM Magazine describes some stages of Customer Experience Management (CEM) practice, or commitment, and some key characteristics of each. The labels are:


1) The Self-Centric 2) The Lip-Servicers
3) The Crowd-Followers 4) The Differentiators

Essentially, if a firm finds itself in any of the first three categories, they are either not sincere about CEM, and/or not getting nearly the benefits that are possible from effective CEM. The Differentiators, on the other hand, are using CEM to build long-term competitive advantages.

QuestBack has first-hand experience with companies that are serious about measuring and managing the Customer Experience. By systematically gathering, analyzing and acting on customer feedback, and using metrics like Net Promoter to guide their actions, they are able to continually improve their products and service offerings. They are "moving the needle" for customers, and it shows up in the measurements!

High Return on Investment (ROI)

One QuestBack customer's experience illustrates the power of being a Differentiator. Using a Net Promoter approach to measure and segment customers by loyalty, they designed marketing outreach programs to contact and engage their strongest advocates to generate increased sales from referrals. At last count, based on a significant increase in referral sales alone, they calculated an ROI of over 900% on their investment and use of the QuestBack system. And, this comes on top of the general continuous improvement benefits that they are seeing from really measuring and managing the customer experience.

Click the link to access CRM Magazine article: "You Are What You Measure"


Convert insights to action with QuestBack

Many firms struggle to convert customer feedback into actions that will have measurable impact on customer relationships. QuestBack's product and service offerings are designed to help with this challenge. All are focused on making customer feedback processes highly effective for improving customer relationships - and the bottom line.

How QuestBack Can Help:

1. An effective, proven and easy-to-use feedback management product for gathering, analyzing and acting on customer feedback.

2. A range of services designed to help your organization become an effective practitioner of Customer Experience Management.

• Assessment your current feedback processes, methods and tools.
• CEM program design, tailored to your specific needs and circumstances.
• Help with creating optimized survey questionnaires, to get the data you need with minimum time demands on customers.
• Help setting up action triggers and follow up processes that will delight your customers (and your management team).
• Help determining how to best use your own customer data in combination with customer feedback for maximum insight and impact.
• Training and assistance in the analysis / reporting processes so you'll have professional quality data to share (and act on).