Collecting feedback is often the cornerstone of good customer service. Feedback systems fulfil several key objectives in an organization, helping to improve products, the quality of services, and even the work environment.
Understanding the value of feedback is essential for building a people-centric organization that genuinely cares about its customers and employees.
Defining Feedback In an Enterprise Context
Here are some critical characteristics of feedback to keep in mind when designing feedback collection systems:
- It is Reactive - Feedback comes in response to an input or stimulus, differentiating it from opinion. However, some time may lapse between the input and feedback events, making it challenging to trace feedback back to its root cause.
- It May Be Solicited or Unsolicited - Most organizations obtain insights from solicited and unsolicited feedback. They have formal feedback collection methods and campaigns inviting feedback from customers. Or they may extract feedback from general chatter, such as conversations on social media.
- It Works in a Cause-and-Effect Loop - Feedback always exists in a closed-loop model – where the company drives a transaction, the customer provides feedback, the company acts on the feedback, the customer recognizes the action, and the feedback loop is closed.
In a contact center, there are usually two broad categories of feedback – quantified and unquantified. Quantified feedback is collected in structured data like a customer satisfaction score or an unhappy/neutral/happy rating. A data analysis model can sift through this quantified feedback to provide clear insights in the form of trends, patterns, and averages.
Unquantified feedback occurs in open statements, where customers share their opinion as they please. This could be in response to an open-ended question on a survey, as part of a telephone conversation, or within a chatbot interaction.
The Five Main Sources of Customer Feedback
Feedback can come from many places – here are five to keep in mind:
- Customer Reviews
Reviews are likely to be the most common type of feedback an organization will encounter. Whether it is restaurants on Yelp, local businesses on Google reviews, or appliances on Amazon, customers have several channels at hand to review an organization’s core products or services. It is essential to pay attention to these reviews to identify pain points, poor-performing inventory items, and service challenges among specific members of staff.
- Software Bug Reports
Bug reports are among the most crucial feedback types for software products and SaaS apps. When an application crashes, it may auto-generate a bug report and send it back to the vendor. Most leading software products ask users if they want to send a bug report whenever a feature or functionality stops working. Companies should closely monitor this feedback to fix product issues and improve the user experience.