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8 ways for brands to keep their customer feedback strategy on track

Over the last few years, numerous research reports have indicated that brand loyalty is at an all time low, with one going so far this summer to suggest that most people wouldn’t care if 73% of brands disappeared tomorrow!

So how do you make sure that your organisation remains firmly among the remaining 27% of brands that customers do actually value?

Matt Dyer, Sabio’s head of consulting said: “You’ve clearly got to differentiate from your competitors based on the service and products you offer. But how do you set about collecting the feedback to make sure you’re delivering on all fronts? There are many approaches out there that allow you to gather feedback across all your channels, so it’s no longer a question of can we do it – instead we need to concentrate on selecting the right approach. Here at Sabio we have put together 8 tips to help brands ensure that their customer feedback remains on track.”

  1. Have a team in place to analyse acceptance rates and drive up the percentage of customers completing your surveys. Without meaningful insight, it’s much harder to implement change.
  2. Ensure your survey interactions are based on specific customer personalisation preferences. Allow customers to set their own preferences on your MyCompany self-service pages, and then make it impossible to survey customers via the wrong medium.
  3. Set a policy for engaging with detractors and super-detractors. Decide whether you should be putting a call in, even if you know it’s likely to be negative.
  4. Make sure your Voice of the Customer feedback initiatives are plugged directly into your continuous improvement activities. There’s no excuse for organisations that don’t act on their feedback.
  5. Apply the same thinking for your employee surveys. You may have an issue with Average Handling Times, for example. It would be smart to ask your agents why they think this is happening – and make sure to act on their feedback.
  6. Think about building some intelligence to your feedback approach. For voice surveys you can link your IVR to the survey application and provide customers with a more personalised approach. This would make a change from the kind of generic ‘opt in if you would be happy to do a survey’ strategy.
  7. Link your feedback surveys to the reality of the customer journey. For example, if a customer has been put on hold four times then it makes sense to link them to a context-specific survey that takes account of the fact that they have probably had a poor experience.
  8. Don’t forget to thank your customers for taking part. If you act on their feedback, make sure you let them know and perhaps recognise their contribution in some way. It’s great from a marketing perspective, demonstrating that you really do listen to customers and act on their feedback.

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