How to Improve Customer Satisfaction using Customer Feedback

Improving customer satisfaction is a major focus area for most service-driven organizations. Yet every day we see negative, angry, frustrated online reviews for most brands online. It seems that the internet is full of angry customers venting out their frustration about a poor service experience, quality of the product they bought or about the rude behavior of the support staff. 

Online or offline there is no dearth of customer-centric forums that help customers reach out to brands to share their negative experience and seek recourse.

The big question here is ‘If every major organization is trying hard to improve customer satisfaction using Feedback why are the customers choosing these forums to voice their opinion?’.

And what can brands do to direct this feedback to the right sources and delight the customer? Let’s try to demystify the eluding answer.

Capture Feedback When it Matters

By the time most companies send out a feedback form, it’s usually too late. The best time to ask the customer to share feedback is right after the transaction or the service experience. This holds true, especially for the BFSI industry. Ask the customer how her experience was at the branch/with the service representative right after she steps out of your premises. Reason? It’s because right now her memory is fresh about the interaction she had with your brand and you won’t have to make a huge effort to encourage her to share her opinion. Send the same SMS survey 2 days later and the customer has not only forgotten about the interaction, but she also has no incentive or motivation to share the details with you. 

One good example of the execution of this practice are Food Delivery Apps, as they ask you to rate the food and their delivery service the moment you receive your order. Taking cues from our own behavior - we all know that if we forget or skip rating the food right after receiving/consuming it there’s a high chance that we’d never go back and share the review.

Show them that you care

It’s not enough to capture customer feedback unless you are planning to take corrective actions using it.

Research shows that 81% of customers are willing to give feedback if they are assured that they would get a fast response.

That’s a very high number and shows the perception your customers carry of you when it comes to taking care of their suggestions. That is the precise reason why brands need to put extra effort into not just seeking customer feedback but also assuring them that it would be put into action, very soon. If you are using a Customer Feedback software or app look for one that helps you act upon negative feedback quickly and close the feedback loop.

Set Alerts for Negative Feedback

History has it, the best of customer service case-studies have come out of instances where brands have been able to turn-around a service mess-up into customer delight by taking corrective action. So even if your service team manages to fail customer’s expectations or deliver a bad service/product experience you still have the chance to win the customer back. In fact, if you are strategic enough in your approach it’s possible to turnaround a bad product or service experience by 360 degrees. 

But even if your objective is not so ambitious it is always important to keep a tab on negative brand interaction and reviews and take corrective action right away. One simple trick to do it is by setting up real-time alerts and notifications for negative customer feedback and streamline your customer success efforts to extinguish any such fires right away. Find a customer feedback software that alerts the respective team every time the customer shares a negative review or feedback and train them to manage such interactions with the right response strategy.

Use a Powerful Customer Feedback Management App

Improving customer satisfaction seems to be a tricky equation most businesses are unable to solve. Therefore it is imperative for you to use a customer feedback management app that doesn't just capture customer feedback but also gives you actionable insights and detailed analysis of the survey reports. Look for a feedback software that sets up real-time alerts for negative feedback and allows you to follow up with your customers immediately for further details. Reach out to irate customers on a personal level and try to provide a quick and helpful resolution. The best approach here is to provide a resolution that exceeds the customer's expectations to leave them on a happy note. 

There’s no doubt that fulfilling customer’s expectations and delivering consistently exceptional service is an uphill task but with the right attitude and the best technological aids you can improve customer satisfaction use it to amp up brand love.