Use the right tools
Whether you have a voice of the customer program, track product reviews online, solicit opinions from people using surveys or monitor social media accounts for feedback, make sure you are using the right tools to keep tabs on interactions with your business. Today, more options than ever exist in terms of the tools available, so determine what works best for your organization or company.
Ask the right questions
When collecting feedback, make sure each question you ask leads to actionable change. If you can’t switch the software systems you use or change the services you sell, it is pointless to ask questions about them, as this will only make an unpleasant situation worse when you do nothing to improve the deficiencies. Instead, focus on gaining insights for those areas throughout the customer journey you can streamline or improve. Many times the tendency is to “cover the waterfront” rather than ask just the most important questions that will make a difference.
Engage in active listening
If your active listening skills are poor, you won’t hear what your customers are saying and respond to their needs, whether you are talking with them about their concerns directly, collecting feedback from a survey, gathering responses from your VOC platform, collecting web comments or using other tool. By engaging in active listening and gaining a clear understanding of pain points and ideas, you can make the right improvements for your business. It’s one thing to collect information and data, but another to really understand what is being said.
Assess the customer experience
Are you easy to do business with? How is your customer service department at resolving problems? Are your representatives trained and friendly? If you aren’t doing well in these areas, your customer retention likely isn’t good and you may be alienating people, as well as missing out on sales and on building a strong relationship with customers not to mention driving people to do business with your competitors). As you go through this assessment, it will be imperative to keep an open mind and be willing to make the needed changes. By fixing any problem areas, such as poor customer service, as well as other complaints, you can strengthen customer satisfaction.
So what are you waiting for? Answer the call and develop deeper customer loyalty! If you need help with your listening program, we have experience working with many organizations and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your situation with you. Every company or organization can develop an approach to strengthen their listening skills. Developing the right solutions and approaches will take time, effort and attention, but in the end, the benefits of doing so will be worth it!
To learn more about our approach at NUMINSIGHTS LLC, visit our website today.