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  Esteban Kolsky 06:52:12 am on February 19, 2009 | 3 | # |
  Tags: CRM, culture, customer service, enterprise feedback management, Experience, experience management, feedback, global surveys, satisfaction, surveys, Voice of the Customer

  Writing Global Surveys for Success, Not Failure

  Interesting title, don’t you think?

  Most companies that take on writing global surveys have failed at it.  Some of them did it once and the never again.  Others are still doing it wrong but since the results they get are what they want, they won’t change for fear of actually finding what their customers think of them.

  This is a touchy topic since it is very easy to fall into stereotypes and make generalizations about entire countries or regions, and end up looking like a bigot.  Which, I am not.  Thus, I am not going to point to any specific country or region around the world and say “these people do this” or “those people don’t understand that”.  Instead I am going to point at the more general problems and trends, and we can later work together if you are interested in a specific country or region.

  Four key things to remember when doing global surveys:

  1. Some people are polite.  Some cultures are too polite to really tell you what you want to know.  The best you will get is a polite response saying things are fine, when they are not.  This means you will learn to write the questions in different ways for those groups, and you will use different scales.  I know of at least one case where a client of mine with a 90% satisfaction score had an attrition ration in excess of 26%!  How did we solve it?  We figured out what questions to ask and what were the best scales to find out what customers really meant.  Trial and error works great in these situations.

  2. Some people are brutal.  On the other hand, some people are brutal.  You ask for feedback? no problem, you stink and your product is so bad it hurts me to use it… just like everybody else and all their products!  The key in this situation is to put things in proper perspective.  Sure, the brutal criticism may, just may, be well warranted – but chances are that everybody is getting similar feedback.  So, take the time to put it into perspective.  Try to benchmark your performance against your competitors or even your partners.  Work with a local service provider that can help you understand how your ratings rank in comparison, and work to improve your processes and products, not your scores so much.

  3. Languages are all different, literal translations are bad.  Asking someone if they are satisfied with the bad behavior they received from the last interaction is not a good question to lead off a survey.  Alas, I have seen it.  When you construct questions in one language, literal translations sometimes change the meaning of the question in a different language.  The more diverse the languages and differing their grammars and syntax rules, the worse it is.  Do it right, craft new questions with similar meaning in different questions.  However, they don’t have to ranked or rated the same way, nor be the exact same question – why?  See point 4.

  4. Reporting should be detailed, not generalized. Here is the biggest thing about doing global surveys, which I hope you gather from what i said before: each survey should target specifics for each region or country, and as such should be reported separately.  So, even if you use the same questions and scales, do not mix the results of two different locales in the reporting.  Let me say it again – do not mix results.  You probably already knew that, or probably figured out from the earlier points I made – so I won’t preach it again.  OK, just one more time – don’t mix results from different places.  Why? two words: skewed results.

  Bottom Line: write your surveys for each region or country in the region or country, using local resources.  Don’t cross-tabulate as scores don’t mean the same in different parts of this world. And make sure you report for each region or country, not across all of them in a single, global score.

  Need more? Got something to add?  That is what comments are for… feel free to let me know what you think.
   

• Esteban Kolsky 07:08:32 am on February 10, 2009 | 3 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer service, enteprise feedback management, feedback, Feedback Management, surveys, Voice of the Customer

  Surveys Done Right – Part 4 – EFM Best Practices

  Ok, final part of this series.

  We so far have covered point-of-service surveys, customer-satisfaction surveys, and best-practices for surveys.  On to the best way to implement enterprise feedback management in your organization.  This is a set of best practices I use with all my clients to get them to understand what is the best way to adopt an Enterprise Feedback Management initiative.  Since I was told the previous posts were too long – on to the rest of this!

  Most organizations embark on feedback management programs with no clear objective or purpose, except to simply collect information from the client. This results in long, rambling surveys, improperly worded questions and poor response rates. More importantly, it results in an annoyed customer who must put up with an ill-prepared organization as well as valuable feedback being discarded because the organization doesn’t know what to do with it.

  Best Practice 1 – Determine the W’s

  Who: Most important in a feedback management program is determining the specific customers involved by segmenting . All other questions – what, when and why – are derived from knowing your feedback collection target. Some customers and segments will be more comfortable answering short surveys, while others won’t take the time. A survey for customers whose historical response rate is less than 10% would be a waste of time. However, direct feedback collection (via a conversation or call-out campaign) may yield a higher rate, as well as more feedback. Throwing a survey “over the wall” to see who answers is inefficient. Different users should be targeted using different methods. This most critical “W” must take precedence.

  Why: The most complicated question to ask in determining whether to collect customer feedback is why. Specific reasons for collecting the data (such as improving profile, maintaining customer satisfaction and ensuring compliance) tend to be overlooked once the project starts. Lack of a reason for collecting feedback leads to similar problems as a lack of purpose or an objective: messy, complex feedback events that achieve little success. World-class organizations focus on the specific reason to conduct the project as a way to determine the best questions to ask. This piece of data relies on knowing who is being asked for feedback and, along with the response, makes up the basis for answering the last two questions.

  What: Asking for feedback with no specific purpose often leads to violating the simple rules for surveys. The best surveys have one specific purpose, and all questions or actions support that purpose. Knowing what is being sought, as in a piece of information or insight, goes a long way toward reaching this goal. “Fishing” surveys, which usually have no purpose, tend to irritate users and accomplish nothing. Response rates are higher for single-purpose feedback events, and insights are easier to come by than for complex, multipurpose or no-purpose events.

  When: The best time to capture and channel feedback varies depending on the situation and process. Organizations deploying a feedback project must understand that for each situation it is imperative to capture feedback at the appropriate time. Asking for customer feedback or capturing feedback four weeks after an event leads to faulty memory of the event, thus inaccurate feedback. Conversely, requesting feedback before an interaction is complete, even if it takes several days, yields inconsistent feedback. For each project, consider when and how to capture feedback from customers as part of the planning and decision-making stage.

  Best Practice 2 – Create an Objective and a Goal

  Once your organization answers these four questions, it has the necessary information to set the survey objective. Goals, such as collecting information, measuring customer satisfaction and understanding what customers want, do not make for acceptable objectives or well-measured goals. Specific objectives must be aligned with an existing, ongoing or impending corporate strategy. For the success of the feedback collection event, the goal must be related to a well-understood metric already in use.

  In determining the objective and goal for your project, it is not sufficient to ask, “What am I trying to find out?” Qualify the objective based on the purpose in obtaining the information. Determining overall customer satisfaction, for example, will yield only the number of people who are satisfied but not the strategic value of the data. Why is this data important? Do you want to up-sell or cross-sell based on satisfaction, improve target markets, or increase response rates by knowing whom to target? Knowing the answers to these questions is more important than simply knowing the overall satisfaction level of your client base.

  Best Practice 3 – Define the Insight You Seek

  Outlining the results sought does not mean knowing the number or metric that will result from the feedback event but the statement that needs data. Most organizations blindly implement a feedback event, then spend a lot of time analyzing the results in the hope of getting useful insight. World-class organizations, however, already know the results but are unsure of the data that supports the outcome. For example, an organization that conducts a survey in the hope of
  determining how many satisfied customers are repeat customers knows which data elements to collect, their lifetime, how often to collect data and repeat data collection, and the meaning of the results. The enterprise may not be sure if the number is 15% or 20%, for example, but knows the intent of gathering the data.

  Organizations that undertake feedback management based on specific insights sought spend less time analyzing the data in the hope of finding the insights and understanding the correlation between data points, insights and strategies. In contrast, organizations that don’t implement these processes tend to expend too many resources pouring over collected data trying to make sense of it and relate it in a manner that translates into insights.

  Your turn – what do you think? Have you done this? What results have you achieved? Please leave a comment with your impressions…
   

• Esteban Kolsky 03:58:39 pm on February 2, 2009 | 1 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer experience management, customer service, enteprise feedback management, Experience, Feedback Management, surveys, Voice of the Customer

  Surveys Done Right – Part 3 – Survey Best Practices

  OK, on to part 3 – best practice for surveys.

  I have been working on and off on this topic for a while, updating it and making sure it was still valid.  This is the knowledge I have gained over the years of doing surveys.  Enjoy, and do let me know what you think of it.

  Know What You Want. It is essential to know before crafting the survey what information you need to get out of it. Most surveys look for customer satisfaction, others are trying to determine how to improve the delivery of service. Yet others may be trying to determine the effectiveness of a certain service or program. The most important thing to know is that each of these goals should be unique and single – one survey per goal, with documentation before you release it.

  Determine Effectiveness. Survey methods will be unique for each channel (for example, Web, e-mail, phone) and customer segment (geography/postal code, age, gender,  buying/service patterns). Each customer segment is unique and will react to channels and survey methods differently. For example, a customer registering a newly installed personal computer may or may not have a readily available Internet connection during the registration process. A survey that requires customers to go online to complete an installation satisfaction survey may be an annoyance. However, the addition of a simple question, such as “Connected to Internet?” or “Store survey results until next Internet logon?” will advance the process. Effective surveys are delivered at the conclusion of a service interaction via the same channel as the service provided.

  Adhere to the “KISS” Principle. The keep it short and simple (KISS) principle applies to these surveys. Customers are more likely to complete a survey when the time to completion is explicitly displayed at the beginning of the process, the purpose of the survey is clearly stated and the use of information is defined. For example: “To help us improve our service to you in the future, please participate in our satisfaction survey. The survey will take less than one minute, and no information specific to you will be shared or distributed to any third party.” We recommend no more than three to seven questions per survey, one common topic, and short and succinct wording. Furthermore, to make it easier to answer and to tally responses, multiple-choice answers are recommended. Writing questions is a complex and iterative process. The most critical step in the survey process is to test questions. Before implementation, survey questions should be tested in focus groups, followed by a small pilot survey run and measured against a real customer base for a short period.

  Ensure Consistent Gathering. Hand-picking the “right” respondents to achieve higher scores is a common problem when gathering responses. For example, enterprises that discard participant data because the customer appears upset, not in the right frame of mind, biased or not really friendly rob themselves of critical insight and end up with skewed results. Customers who are the least “friendly” or sympathetic are often the most honest in their responses and central to a better understanding of where service delivery may be failing. Survey response gathering should be done consistently, either to all subjects in the target group (if feasible) or by following a predetermined random algorithm that will be applied to all customers (for example, every fourth caller into a Web site or call center).

  Read the Answers. More than 60 percent of enterprises generate a single data point from a survey – one that usually supports their original view of the level of customer service satisfaction – and ignore an analysis of the possible implications of the data. A well-designed survey will reveal trends, patterns and outright new information that are valuable to improving the customer service operation. This information should be used as part of an EFM system (read “Finally, A Definition for EFM“) to better understand, know and serve customers.

  Act on the Information. Even the best surveys, designed and executed with the best of intentions, are a waste of effort unless a set of specific actions is put in place to respond to customer input.  Alas, the majority of organizations fail to change the customer service organization or workflows based on survey results. Conducting a survey just to know where things are will upset customers who believe that the survey is intended to improve things. An enterprise that surveys customers but fails to act on the data will actually damage the relationship with the customers more than if they had never been surveyed. Even if the only purpose of the survey is to capture the status of customer satisfaction, customers should be given the opportunity to suggest specific input as to how they would like to see interactions improved. In all cases, the end result should be the same: Whatever needs to be fixed should be fixed, and what should be improved must be improved.

  Repeat It. Improvements to the customer experience happen through an iterative process. Responses captured once will be inadequate for determining a trend. If we don’t know whether customers are more satisfied today than last quarter, we are bound to lose customers, and the purpose of the survey will be lost. At periodic business cycles (such as quarterly), as determined by the business, the survey should be repeated, and all the above steps should be done again – including knowing what we want from the survey.

  Let Customers Know. Improvements to customer service as a result of customer feedback should be communicated back to the customers. Let them know that their input is taken seriously and used. Few organizations that conduct surveys do this, yet it is a critical part of customer experience management and of EFM strategies, and it should be done to encourage future participation from customers and to improve customer loyalty.

  So, what do you think?  Am I missing something?  Of course, the bottom line is that you should only do this as part of anEFM strategy… right?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 02:04:52 am on January 25, 2009 | 6 | # |
  Tags: CRM, Customer Experience, customer experience management, customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction surveys, customer service, customers, enterprise feedback management, Experience, feedback, surveys, Voice of the Customer

  Surveys Done Right – Part 2 – Customer Satisfaction

  I have been dreading writing this entry since I came up with the idea for the series (have you read part 1 yet?).  It is not that I don’t know what to say, or that I don’t want to do it.  It is simply that my fear of providing “sample” survey that will later become “real surveys” for all people without customization or personalization really, really takes hold in this arena.  I mean, who has not had to write a customer satisfaction survey in the past?  It is probably the most used, misunderstood, and poorly implemented of all surveys out there.

  If we go by the surveys that I have seen, customer satisfaction surveys should only have one question since that is what most people care about anyways: “overall, how satisfied are you with us?”.  It seems that if the customer says they are overall satisfied then there are no problems.  Further, as long as we get a sufficient number of customers to say they are satisfied (somewhere in the mid-70s to mid-80s), and the number remains consistent or (gasp) even grows a little  we are perfectly set from the customer experience, loyalty, and satisfaction point of view.  After all, if 80% of people are satisfied – isn’t that good?  Well, yes and no.  I wrote about how you can ensure you will get a 90% of more in customer satisfaction surveys in the past (second most popular post in this site).  It is possible to score high – even increase your scores, and not be doing a good job.

  So, before we jump into the description of the survey and the sample questions (and before I beg you again to personalize and customize them), let’s make sure we understand one thing about this survey.  This “sample” survey is not intended to tell you how many people like you.  It is intended to, historically, provide a trending line of your customer satisfaction overall – but more important it is intended to give you real answers to partial satisfaction questions (e.g. were satisfied with the speed of the answer?) in accordance to your strategy (you do have one of those right?).  Finally, consider that I used these questions for customers that have customer satisfaction as a key metric and part of the insight.  I still believe that customer satisfaction is too flawed as a metric to be used reliably (also read this one), but a trending report cannot hurt – as it wouldn’t with any other metric.

  Too many words to get here, so here are the the essentials of a customer satisfaction survey (part 3 of this series, best practices for writing surveys – stay tuned!):

  • First, the most important part – KISS (keep it short and simple).  I use the rule of 5+/-2 (five, plus or minus two), with five being the magic number, and three and seven the limits.
  • Second, you MUST personalize the questions to the specific items you want to measure satisfaction on – which is why there are some questions below to use, but they may not fit what you are looking for.  Tie your questions to your strategy
  • Third, send them out every business cycle (varies by industry and function), and make sure you use panel management tools so you won’t keep sending them to the same person over and over (we know what they think – no one should get more than one a year), and that you don’t send them to people who won’t respond.
  • Fourth, statistical significance is great for market research or election day polls, not so much on customer satisfaction.  Make sure you get a large enough number to make it varied (I suggest at least between 3-4% of the population) and I am talking responses – not invitations.
  • Fifth, make sure you use the same questions the next time you send them out (yes, exactly the same wording) so you can keep historical trends.  Remember, customer satisfaction is an OK metric to keep as long as you use it as a historical trending metric, not a KPI

  Those are the basic rules for these surveys, but more will arise as you begin to implement them.  Of course, best practices for EFM and Surveys apply, so those are to be considered as well.  Now, without further ado, the list of questions I’d like to propose for your consideration:

  1. Overall, what is your satisfaction with Company XYZ? (hate this question, but it is an easy one to answer)

  Now, this question is to be answered in a numerical scale, I favor a scale of 1-4, you can use whatever works for your objectives.  A scale of 1-10 is popular with people who endorse NPS (Net Promoter Score), but I don’t buy into that.  A different way to ask this questions, which I prefer, is:

  1. Overall, would you say you are satisfied with Company XYZ?

  This question is answered with a simple YES-NO.  Why do I like this question? Two things, first the wording predisposes the respondent to say yes (which is a positive score).  Second, you can setup your scripts to react in the case of a negative answer – and since the question predisposes the respondent to say yes, when someone says NO they really mean it.

  From the following questions, pick some of the ones that reflect your objectives, vision, strategy, and purpose for this survey.  Remember, personalization and customization are highly encouraged – so if these don’t fit your needs go ahead and change them accordingly.

  2.1.  What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ web site / self-service solution?

  2.2. What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ representatives on the phone?

  2.3. What is your satisfaction with Product ABC from Company XYZ?

  2.4. What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ return policies?

  2.5. What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ use of email for customer service?

  Well, you get the idea.  Keep in mind that how you ask the question is going to depend on the answer, and see Q1 above to see some examples of different ways to write the questions.  Needless to say, again, the questions you chose for the second part are related to your specific, strategic goals and are bound to change for your survey.

  This is the longest post I wrote since we started this blog, but I wanted to make sure it was clear and explicit.  There is, of course, lots more to read and write about customer feedback, customer service, customer satisfaction… well, anything dealing with customers.  You will read more and we move along – but how do you like this post?  Interesting? Are you using it?  Please let me know your thoughts and experiences… and thanks for reading!

   

• Esteban Kolsky 06:14:49 pm on January 15, 2009 | 10 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer service, enterprise feedback management, feedback, surveys, Voice of the Customer

  Surveys Done Right – Part 1 – Point-of-Service Surveys

  I am going to break some very old rules of mine to write this post.  Ever since I introduced the three-layer model for surveys while at Gartner (point-of-service, customer-satisfaction, planning) I have been getting requests for “sample questions”.  I have maintained, and continue to do, that I cannot provide sample questions since all questions need to be created according to the situation, respondent base, strategy and vision for your feedback initiative, as well as the standards and rules you set for your surveys.  Of course, they also have to be personalized to respondent and situation, and be written to match delivery and collection channel.  This is as basic as it gets when writing surveys.  My concern / problem is that when someone gets “sample questions” they become “THE questions” without further tinkering, and that is just wrong.

  So, the counterpoint to that is that I have seen the concept implemented (point-of-service surveys) with some truly horrendous ideas.  I have experienced “short” surveys of 10 questions asking all sorts of things, and questions so badly written that it is almost impossible to answer.  Thus, as a public service (yes, I know I am a selfless philanthropist when it comes to surveys) I am going to break the rule and make this post about two things: a reminder of how point-of-service surveys should be done, and a set of sample questions (which I will regret for a long time, and possibly my grand-kids will as well).

  First, how does this work.  Point-of-service (also called point-of-delivery) surveys are SHORT (yes, needs to be shouted), 2-3 questions surveys aimed to discover the efficacy (not the efficiency) of the service interaction.  In other words, did we do a good job delivering service and was it what you needed.  It is intended to spot any problems during delivery, and to fix them before they become customer service issues or lead to customers not being satisfied.  Simple, huh?

  Now, the main point of doing this is preventing service issues from becoming problems.  Thus, the critical part is not doing the survey, but actually having processes in place to reach out to customers and fix their problems when either of these questions returns a negative answer.  This is where most companies fail, they don’t have documented, specific processes in place to take care of negative answers quickly (yes, speed matters).  The reason I am bringing this up, even if you copy the questions from the bottom of this post – please, please, please make sure you have the necessary processes in place before doing these surveys.

  Final point I want to make, then we move to the actual questions.  Channel of delivery matters.  If at all possible, try to keep the survey in the same channel where the transaction took place, and to follow the interaction immediately.  If the customer called, make the survey an IVR-driven survey post-call (no, don’t have another call for follow up… it does not work that way).  Email came in? email going out (as quickly as possible, not 2-3 days later).  If you cannot maintain the channel of service be the channel of delivery (or you cannot make it immediately following the transaction) then your best bet is using email surveys.  No, not email with links to online surveys — email surveys.  The questions are within the email and they can answer simply and quickly.  OK, getting off the soap box now (yes, I am passionate about this “stuff” being done well).

  CAVEAT: I know I said this before, but please, please, pleaseeeeee customize these for your situation and personalize them. Please?

  Question 1 (this one should never change): Did you receive the answer you needed?

  Question 2 (choose from the three below based on what else you need to measure):

  Q2.1: Did we do a good job delivering the answer? (my favorite, but a little broad in meaning)

  Q2.2: Was our service cordial and polite? (in other words, who needs some training or talking to)

  Q2.3:Was our representative knowledgeable? (again, training or knowledge management issues)

  Q3.3: Was our representative prompt to answer your questions? (do they know what they need to know?)

  You get the idea, depending on what part of the interaction is critical you can change the second question.

  So, please don’t let me down. Customize, personalize and (more important) let me know how it goes…

   

• Esteban Kolsky 01:19:00 pm on October 14, 2008 | 5 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer service, enterprise feedback management, feedback, granularity, LinkedIn, surveys, Voice of the Customer

  The Uselessness of Granularity in Feedback Management

  Warning, we are embarking on another of my pet peeves: granularity.  What?  You don’t know what I am talking about about? Let me explain myself.  Granularity is how detailed of a scale you use when ranking feedback.  For example, you could use a simple Boolean scale, like Yes or No.  You could also use numeric scales, say between one and five.  Finally, you could use word scales, like Horrible, Bad, Neutral, Good, Excellent.  Either way, the concept is that you give the respondent a scale of choices to base their response to a specific feedback question.

  What could possibly be wrong with that?  Well, it is not the concept, but the implementation that gets me.  Same as with customer satisfaction and loyalty (you could click on these links for my previous rants on loyalty and satisfaction). The concept of giving people choices is good, as it creates way for them to express opinions on any topic.  It allows organizations to prioritize their efforts and focus on those that need more attention — a Horrible rating needs more attention than a Bad one.  Same thing for Good and Excellent.  See, the logic is good

  The most common used scale until recently was one through five.  That is not that bad, really, except for the odd number of options (more on this later).  However, some “genius” somewhere decided that five options is not enough.  We need to give the customers a scale from one to ten for them to grade us.  They call that granularity and the flawed assumption is that more options will give the organization a deeper understanding of the true feelings of their customers.  There are two problems with this logic:

  First, there are too many options. Customers are already hard to reach for qualified feedback, do you really want to add time to the survey – and so many choices for each question?  Consider a typical, not a good, customer satisfaction survey.  It has 12-15 questions.  Let’s assume that only nine of those questions have granular scales for answer.  In the time it takes a customer to decide whether questions number four and six deserve either a six or a seven the most likely outcome is that they will abandon the survey, or choose an answer without cause.

  The worse part of this, when you get the responses you cluster the answers because there is no real difference between six, seven, and potentially eight – they all become one!  So the time you asked your customer to take to choose the best granular-scale response was wasted, and the decrease in response rates is actually justified.  Customers realized long before you did the uselessness of granularity – and they stopped responding to granular-scale questions.  Not really worth the unlikely benefit of getting better definition of their needs and demands.

  I know what you are asking yourself: what scale should I use then?  A four-option, word scale: Poor, Bad, Good, Excellent.  Why four?  Remember when I said you did not want to have an odd number of options?  If you give customers five options, they will pick number three more often than not.  This is called, informally, fence-sitting and fulfills the purpose for customers to give you feedback but not take a position.  Was my service good? It was Neutral…what does Neutral mean?

  Anyway, I am now getting off my soap box.  Let me part with some statistics.  Among the people I recommended using this scale, and adopted it, customer satisfaction was up an average of 8 points, and response rate scored consistently higher – not with just one survey, but over time with returning customers.

  What do you think?  Are you going to try this?  Let me know your thoughts…

   

• Esteban Kolsky 02:57:52 pm on May 23, 2008 | 4 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer satisfaction, customer service, enterprise feedback management, feedback, Feedback Management, surveys

  I want to tackle, again, a pet-peeve of mine. I want to put an end to Customer Satisfaction.

  Before you start flaming me (that sentence brings back memories from the BBS days), hear me out. I want to end Customer Satisfaction as a metric, and as a corporate practice – yet, in the process, I want your customers to be so satisfied with the way you do things that you will never have to worry about satisfaction. I want to change the way you deal with them, and how to ensure they get what they need.

  In the old days, back while at Gartner, I wrote quite a bit about this. Of course, you would have had to be a Gartner customer or attended one of our conferences to get the concept. I am saying this so you see the value of the information below. This is truly stuff that can change your career and your business. It did so for many other clients I had.

  There are two things you need to do for this to work. First, you need to change your processes from efficiency-centric to effectiveness-centric. Second, you need to confirm the conclusion of each and every interaction. Let’s dig a little deeper.

  When I say change your processes i man it is not about getting the RIGHT information to the customer quickly and efficiently. It is about getting the PROPER information at the RIGHT time. You will have to change the process from asking questions that match your answers to finding out what they need to complete their task, and figure out how to deliver that information best. It may not even be in your knowledge base — it may not even be documented, but it will be after you are done. For example, if a customer at a bank asks for a balance in a savings account, it would be interesting to know why they need to know, what they intend to do, and propose certain service or solution that may match their need. It is about complete delivery, not just get-off-the-phone delivery.

  In the same manner, when we talk about confirming the finality of each interaction, you MUST ask two questions at the end of each interaction (methods vary, results won’t): did you get what you needed? did we do a good job delivering? Sure, the exact wording can change to match your needs and to customize or personalize in each interaction, but the concept should not. This is the key part of this concept. Not only MUST you ask the question, you also have to have the processes in place to reach out and complete the interaction to the customer’s content. If they say NO to either question, you need to continue working with them until it is YES.

  If you follow through on changing your processes and systems to incorporate these practices I can guarantee you will never worry about customer satisfaction again — since all your customers will be satisfied. If you don’t believe me, pilot it.

  If you need more information on how to approach and accomplish either of these tasks, let me know.

   

• Esteban Kolsky 06:46:49 pm on May 21, 2008 | 3 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer satisfaction, customer service, enterprise feedback management, feedback, LinkedIn, strategy, surveys

  There is a lot of confusion surrounding what EFM (Enterprise Feedback Management) is and what is not.

  Lately it has been used as a substitute for surveys. Whenever we used to say “surveys” we now say Enterprise Feedback Management. Problem is we are just using a fancy term to describe the same, short-sighted approach to managing customer feedback: ask ’em and forget ’em.

  Enterprise Feedback Management goes much further, if done properly, than that. Contrast the two following cases:

  Case A – company purchases an “EFM” system (surveys by any other name). Produces and distributes a few surveys a year, mostly for customer satisfaction (another no-no), and collects some data. They look at the data collected, produce some simple reports (x% said this, y% said that), and are overall satisfied with their results. Yet, they cannot seem to affect their churn rate, nor can they focus on bringing new customers — not to mention that their marketing program seems to be aiming for the wrong customers. They conclude, erroneously, that EFM is not really a solution for them… even though the vendor told them they would be able to understand their customers better, they are at the same place they were before… but with a “good” customer satisfaction score.

  Case B – a similar company deploys an EFM initiative within their organization. They create a strategy to manage customer feedback, which tells them where the feedback can obtained (no more than 40-50% should come from surveys), what they can do with the feedback they collect (think insights and data-mining for new data), how are they going to integrate and mix their survey-data with existing enterprise-data, what metrics they need to implement and follow, what insights and analysis they need to perform — in short, a complete strategy on how to collect, manage, leverage and utilize customer feedback. As a result, they can identify the three sources of churn and address the problems, they can create a better demographic, socio-graphic, and psycho-graphic picture of their clients, they can finally focus on improving and developing new products per the needs of their customers, and more.

  You probably already noticed the difference in the two cases above, but just in case you need to read it. Enterprise Feedback Management is NOT a piece of software, it is a organization-wide initiative that needs to leverage three infrastructure elements: surveying software, data-mining and analysis software, and integration points into existing data and applications. When you implement it you will spend more time building a comprehensive strategy to understand where the feedback is (surveys, blogs, unstructured data through the world, interaction wrap-up notes, etc.), and how to collect it and integrate with your existing data. You will also know, before you seek feedback, what you will find out, how to analyze it, and what you will do with the insights your obtain.

  Ready to start? just let me know… glad to be of service.

   

• May 2024

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