It’s tempting to ask for customer feedback and then make strategic decisions. The problem is, you will probably make the wrong decisions.
A customer might still give a 10/10 for service although your staff were NOT wearing a name badge, they did NOT close the sale, they did NOT upsell, and they did NOT mention the loyalty program.
Profit driving activities are usually invisible to the customer, so they won’t tell you if they were missed.
The table below explains where customer feedback is appropriate, and when it’s not.
Don’t be myopic. Get the whole picture.
Quantity | Complaints are uncontrollable, and in fact, the number of complaints is a base measurement in itself, regardless of their contents. However, rarely are complaints categorised or even tracked over each customer contact point. | ✗ |
Regularity | Complaints and customer feedback forms are not regular because they are received at the discretion of the customer. | ✗ |
Objectivity | Complaints tend to be subjective, especially as a bad event can be over-exaggerated and taint the whole relationship. Customers often get “on a roll” when they start complaining and bring up as many trivial points as possible to “make a point.” | ✗ |
Detailed | Complaints and feedback forms tend to be specific about one event and do not address anything else that happened. | ✗ |
Measurable | Complaints and feedback forms tend to be more verbose than binary. It’s difficult to measure words. | ✗ |
Actionable | Complaints are directly actionable when they reference an event. If a customer directly complains about an employee, it is not difficult to address the issue with the employee directly. | ✔ |
Accuracy | Complaints and feedback cards are emotional and therefore open to exaggeration, compromising the accuracy. For example, a wait time of two minutes can be “honestly” remembered as five minutes. | ✗ |
Staff Interaction | Complaints and feedback are an excellent way to capture the staff interaction as it pertains to a particular event. | ✔ |
Predictive | Complaints and feedback can predict the future direction of sales in a limited way, but not the quantity. Decreasing complaints may indicate sales will increase, and vice versa. But they can’t predict by how much. | ✔ |
Unstructured | This form of data collection is very unstructured and therefore can reveal surprisingly trends that were unforeseen (e.g., a spike in complaints about a promotion not being honoured). | ✔ |
Consumer Insight | Complaints are usually so mixed with emotion that the emotion buries any insights towards buying behaviour. Feedback forms can give an indication of future customer behaviour if the questions are asked directly and correctly. But the answers must be treated cautiously. Asking whether you would be willing to buy in six months may sound like a valid question, but it gives no assurance that it will actually happen. | ✗ |
Operational Insight | Complaints and feedback give direct operational insights but only in pockets. They often don’t report the 99% of operations that are happening quietly, and efficiently. | ✔ |
Real Customer | Feedback is provided by real customers who have transacted with the brand. | ✔ |
Customer Conversation | Customer conversations tend to be centred on the initial customer contact and a single response. The conversations rarely go beyond those two events. | ✗ |
Brand Insight | Very little brand insight is provided because the communication tends to be for a single pocket of events for a small group of people. It does not provide any brand insight to the majority of people who didn’t have problems. Feedback forms may be designed to give some brand feedback, but care should be taken in taking the answers too seriously because customers may not share the truth about their behaviour. | ✗ |
Right Context | Complaints are received within the context of a real situation relative to the situation. Feedback forms are usually broad and not in the context of a real situation. However, modern feedback loops through email and apps can now allow more immediacy and data within the context of a real transaction. | ✔ |
Lifetime Measurement | These measurements are not lifetime measurements and tend to be limited to a specific event. | ✗ |