When it comes to strategic understanding, data insights are not only all the rave, but also the fundamental foundation to building a evidential intelligence for the organisation to follow. Whilst most brands understand the value of data, many are unsure of the various dimensions of value that it can deliver across their end-to-end operations.
In the 1960 American Western, The Magnificent Seven, a group of seven gunfighters are hired to protect a small village. The seven share traits, but are all different and work best together, so too, when combined, the “Seven Data Dimensions” can protect and empower your brand.
This series will provide an overview of the magnificent seven datasets that most brands have access to and that can be leveraged to gain insight and understanding to design strategies, develop tactics, deliver experiences and drive innovation. Working with the global mTab network and other industry experts this series will pull out examples, and top tips, from across the globe where brands are most effectively harvesting and deploying data.
Reviewing the Reviews
Previously, we reviewed social media data streams and online reviews. The next data source we explore is customer feedback, which has been a true, tried, and trusted window into a customer’s perception of and attitude towards a business for eons.
As Neil Jessop, CEO of OnePoint Global, explains,
“While there are countless data sources to pull insight from, feedback from customers is one most time-tested and reliable. Most customers who invest in a business with their purchases want it to succeed in order to have exceptional experiences. So, listening to them as they direct you towards what they want to experience is important. Too many businesses look at negative feedback as a hassle, whereas leading businesses see it as an opportunity.”
Whilst there’s significant value in qualitative insight from sources like social media and online reviews, there is a great deal to be said when the information is gained directly from the source. This allows the researcher to craft the questions and gain intelligence on specific dimensions of a product, service or brand rather than gleaning information from third party sources.
According to James Endersby, CEO of Opinium,
“There is no better direct channel of insight into a business than the feedback customers provide on their experiences with a product, service, channel or employee. This is invaluable when it comes to not only understanding the operations of the organisation, but also the opportunities for evolution and innovation. Leading customer-centric organizations are always soliciting customer feedback on an array of dimensions across the business, but more importantly, they use the feedback to drive the customer-centricity to earn affinity and build loyalty.”
Making a Commitment
Whilst customer feedback is generally a straight-forward initiative in concept, it takes a wholehearted commitment from a brand to solicit feedback and opinions on an ongoing basis from customers. Without stating the obvious, it’s also essential that the sample is representative and that the questionnaire is robust. Unfortunately, far too often this isn’t the case and data can be flawed due to how it was collected. Arguably, inaccurate data that’s presented as “evidence”, is worse than no data at all as it is at best misleading. However, the brands that collect data correctly often have a unique window into their offering’s strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats in the marketplace.
“Many of the most successful brands we support are continually surveying their customers in order to measure their performance and gauge their quality,” as Mark Lummas, Vice President of Customer Success at mTab explained. This is a key building block to driving genuine customer loyalty with an eye towards staying ahead of the innovation curve.
This advantage of understanding the shifting strongpoints and shortcomings of a product delivers an exceptional advantage if a brand is willing to listen to it to guide strategy and advise innovation.
According to Lummas,
“The feedback advises the business on the evolving needs and preferences of the customer and allows them to mirror their experiences and align their engagements accordingly. This is becoming increasingly vital as markets have become more complex and customers have become more sophisticated.”
Quality Questions
The quality of questions asked, the scales used and their presentation is critical in soliciting the right feedback in order to get to actionable insight for a business.
“Trusting what the consumer has to say is essential for the best research. That being said, making sure that the right questions are asked where the customer responses can be provided using their own natural language is also essential”
according to Alexander Edwards, President of Strategic Vision.
The way you craft questions and measure results is key in extracting valuable intelligence. Instilling bias, using leading questions, or focusing on aspects that are inactionable and irrelevant are common mistakes brands make with customer feedback.
As Edwards explained,
“Time and time again we see consumers asked questions about “How likely are you to tell others about this product?” The respondent will say “8.” This response can look good in data, but is meaningless when it comes to the language of the consumer.
“Furthermore, we see satisfaction surveys that ask, “How satisfied are you with your product?” and the ends of the scale are ‘very satisfied’ or ‘very dissatisfied’ which often completely misses how the customer actually feels. In a silly but clear example, when people talk about meaningful things, (e.g. a spouse, a child), they do not say, “a 4! I am satisfied with my husband. Wait, no, he is better than that, he is a 5, I am very satisfied with him.” Instead, they will say, “I love my husband” or “I am angry with him right now.” The best feedback that predicts advocacy, conquest and loyalty takes into account the natural language of the customer and processes in a way that is meaningful.”
Derailing Sales
Whilst gathering customer feedback is a vital dimension in driving sales and innovation, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to get customers to provide their solicited opinion given that they’re all too often inundated with these sorts of surveys. This is why ‘picking your shot’ and using these surveys judiciously, whilst making them quick and efficient in nature, will improve conversion rates and the utility of the feedback.
All too often brands opt to solicit customers at every step of the process. This is almost as bad as ignoring them altogether. These incessant survey solicitations not only reduce the conversion rate, but can also result in frustrated customers who provide negative feedback due to the survey itself.
Worst of all, these types of tactics can actually derail the sales process, taking the customer off the path to purchase, which is the last thing a brand wants – a frustrated customer and no sale.
Getting Started
The first step in getting a handle on customer feedback data streams is to build them since they aren’t generally inherent to a system or technology platform. This begins with determining a centralised owner of feedback. This generally tends to lie with Marketing or Product given the nature of the information being provided by consumers in their reviews. The ownership group should decide the aspects of customer experience they want feedback on, whether it is the online shopping experience, customer service or the performance of the product itself.
This makes embedding the feedback solicitations important so they engage customers at the points of their experience in order to gather relevant feedback. This is fundamental as the closer to the delivered experience that the measure is taken, the more reliable a respondents memory will be of the actual event being surveyed. This helps ensure that rather than scoring on their overarching view of the brand they are assessing the event itself (this is often described as transactional rather than relational measurement). This also means that the team should look at an array of surveying channels via online, email, IVR, point of sale, etc. and wherever possible match the surveying technique to the channel preference demonstrated by the customer with options for alternative modes if desired. This flexibility demonstrates both professionalism and a desire to make it easier for the customer and importantly, ensures that as representative a sample as possible provides input.
As the data is gathered, there should be a focus on feedback trends across demographic, channel or geographic aspects. From here, there should be point owners across every team in the organisation who serve as the conduit for delivering feedback to the appropriate employees to assess and address the specific issue. It should also include the communication specialists to devise and draft a response and resolution, where appropriate.
When a spike occurs, in either a positive or negative direction, these individuals should work congruently to quickly determine the scope of the spike, the impact on the company and the response in terms of operation and communication.
With each data source, the key is to strategically set a plan to identify, collect, analyse and democratise the intelligence as effectively as possible. There also has to be ownership of decisions in terms of assessment, response and reaction. From there, it becomes a matter of creating a habit of returning to the data to identify and understand shifts and evolutions in order to design strategies, develop tactics, deliver experiences and drive innovation.
Customer feedback is just one of these ‘Magnificent Seven’ datasets that can empower your brand. Stay tuned in this series as we continue the review of these dimensions of data to help guide understanding of the holistic health of a brand.
