The situation was interesting – a colleague and I were having a back and forth about a customer requirement. “My experience says this,” he said, and, “My experience says that,” I said. It went on for much longer than it should have. At the end of the conversation, I rather despairingly exclaimed, “Why don’t we just ask the customer?!” It was at that time I realized I wasn’t effectively leveraging the feedback channels our organization had established. The fact that a conversation like that was being had was indicative of an ungodly lack of customer engagement. That had to change.
If you take anything from what I share going forward, it should be that the first step in the mobilization of a customer feedback machine is, incidentally, realization. Much like the ol’ saying, “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem." Thanks, Intervention.
I’ve spoken with several organizations recently about this exact issue. From what I can tell, there is a pandemic-level aversion to customer engagement that is rooted in... Well, I'm not entirely sure. It could be something as simple as just not knowing where to start. Or it could be something more pernicious, like ego.
I’ve worked with organizations that deliberately chose to not engage their customers because they think they already have all the answers they need. That’s bogus and disappointingly elitist. I have heard individuals say that customer engagement is a bad thing. One organization even stated that giving customers what they want is a dangerous precedent to set. Think back to the last time you patronized a business that deliberately didn’t give you what you wanted. Did you go back? Not likely. Why would you?
Other times, it's just something they don't do – out of sight, out of mind. How is that approach even sustainable? How do you drive your product development?
And other times, it’s just plain apathy: our customers won't help us if we ask, so we don’t. C’est la vie.
These presumptions, misgivings, whatever they are, are incorrect, scary, and worst of all, fearful. Don't let fear dissuade you from engaging your customers. They want to be involved in products they like. Crazy, right? Many customers jump at the opportunity to feel like they’re involved in the product’s evolution. So why not work to develop an engine, a machine, that’ll provide you with a stream of customer consciousness that ultimately empowers your organization?
That’s what I did. And after creating my feedback machine, I have some preliminary findings I think are worth sharing:
1). Surveying is Good, But Not Exclusive
The cool thing about surveying is we’ve all been exposed to it. You finish a call with a Comcast customer rep and are asked to take a survey – we all know that it likely went really well, by the way, and that you're likely really happy with the experience.
You order an item from Amazon, and are asked to take a survey (I literally just received one in my inbox). Surveying is pervasive and we probably don’t even realize it. But that’s a good thing! It’s a sign organizations are interested in getting in touch with customers.
Sure, we all know what a survey looks like. So much so that we could reasonably slap one together in a few minutes, send it off, and get some data back. Would that data be useful? Maybe. But only tenuously effective on its own.
The problem is too many organizations engage their customers through surveying exclusively. I get it, it’s a super easy channel through which you gather feedback. But it’s also delimiting and relatively obscure if not accompanied by complementary, cross-validating channels.
2). Less Than 3 Channels is Ok, But Probably Insufficient
In your organization, you have several channels through which customers, clients, and stakeholders are engaged. However, many times, these channels are siloed and exclusive to certain departments within your organization; maybe they're in disrepair.
In order for your feedback to be legitimately useful, these channels need to be identified and organized. Once you’ve identified and organized your channels, you should ensure that you have no less than 3 channels at your disposal. Having only two channels precludes you from effectively validating feedback across channels. Two people are more likely to agree/disagree on something than three.
You know, the more data you have, the better.
3). Be Prepared for Answers You May Not Want
All feedback undertakings must be initiated under the auspices of a hypothesis and/or question. Deploying surveys into the wind or initiating focus groups without predetermined hypotheses will tell you absolutely nothing and benefits your organization very little. Prior to engaging your customers, a question must be in place. Something as simple as, “In general, how satisfied are our customers with our technical support?” This provides the framework through which your questioning is given context. In this example, maybe your hypothesis is your technical support is lacking in some way. You start with this broad question that is followed by questions of increasing refinement.
4). Visualization is Key
Your feedback can be visualized. And therein lies your feedback’s power. I appreciate a standard spreadsheet of data just as much as the next person, but there is no doubt that when lobbying stakeholders, especially executives, you will need some sort of visualization of your feedback. Executives specifically, neither have the time nor the interest in dissecting row after row of abstract data. If you want their buy-in, create something that readily visualizes your feedback and speaks meaningfully to the feedback’s consumer.
5). Diversification of Feedback Machine is Paramount
Finally, just like investing, your feedback return on investment is stronger if you diversify. In the context of feedback machines, you need to identify your feedback channels, consolidate if necessary, and then strategically align them. During the identification and consolidation phase, you should be able to determine if your channels are unique enough to elicit unique data. Channels that are similar will yield similar feedback. Don't put all your cash into stocks from similar segments and demographics.
If you are responsible for customer analytics, product management, or any other customer-facing role, you need to know what your feedback channels are, how each works, the strengths and weaknesses of each, and how to effectively consume them.
tl;dr
Don’t only use surveys for feedback, have at least three feedback channels, be accepting of bias-challenging feedback, always visualize your data (feedback), and diversify the heck out of your feedback methodology.
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