Understanding what customers really think about your company is the holy grail for leaders in any organization, but it’s easier said than done.
Feedback loops are a powerful way to improve CX, and they’re often overlooked. Here’s why they’re so important and what your team needs to know about putting them into practice.
In 1989, consultant Sidney Yoshida produced a paper called The Iceberg of Ignorance in which he described a poor distribution of information within organizations. He found that even though 100% of front-line problems were known to front-line employees, only 74% were known to team leaders, 9% to middle management, and 4% to top management.
This knowledge gap is further aggravated by people’s natural avoidance of unpleasant or negative interactions: when it comes to customer feedback, 96% of customers do not share a negative experience with anyone (Forbes).
So how can you fix a problem that you aren’t even aware of?
It all starts by creating a feedback loop. Proactively seeking out feedback from both front-line employees and customers through surveys and dialogue can uncover friction points related to customer experience.
Effectively improving delivery in this area touches on multiple organizational considerations – including culture, leadership, finance, change management, and even measurement practices.
Since time and space do not allow an in-depth analysis of each element, we’ve decided to share some of the most critical building-blocks we help our clients address.
Creating A Culture of Trust. Trust is the sine qua non for bridging the knowledge gap between the customer problems your front-line employees observe and the feedback the leadership team receives. Organizations that prioritize trust among employees are the most likely to receive genuine feedback.
Employees who feel psychologically safe and have no fear of retribution will be more than willing to be open about the problems they’re observing and to offer suggestions on how they can be solved.
Building Employee Feedback Channels. Implementing employee surveys while also encouraging management to engage in regular dialogue with them creates a norm where bringing customer challenges to light and working towards resolution is valued.
Surveys should be short, set on a regular cadence (bi-weekly or monthly), and leave space for employees to submit longer, written responses if they want to do so.
Similarly, management should regularly have quick meet-ups (5-10 minutes only) with teams and individuals to ask for customer feedback concerns and to brainstorm ideas for improvements.
Investing In Customer Feedback Surveys and Interviews. Hearing from your employees about improvement is incredibly valuable, but hearing from your customers is priceless. Building the same combination of channels through surveys and dialogue is the optimum way to gather honest – and thus quality – feedback.
To ensure the highest levels of recall and accuracy, customer surveys should be sent as close to the moment of interaction as possible (immediately post-purchase or post-visit is ideal).
In addition to surveys, leaders need to carve out time to regularly observe customers. Methods that are highly effective in this area include visiting a market, listening to call center conversations, or viewing qualitative focus group discussions.
These types of touchpoints ultimately help leaders connect with and build empathy for their customers, which then creates a context in which experiences are improved seamlessly as an operational norm.
This post is just a starting point. When we partner with clients, the customer feedback loops we build produce meaningful changes that yield measurable results. While it takes time and there is no one-size-fits-all approach, we love digging into what brands need most, so drop us a line if you’d like to discuss it in more detail.