5 Great Articles About #Feedback

While we like to think we’re smart, experienced customer service professionals we would be selling you short if we thought we were the be-all, end-all and know-it-all of customer service. We have an amazing network of customer service resources available just in the people we’ve connected with on Twitter.  We’d like to highlight 5 great articles about customer feedback and what we’ve learned.

1. Winning Customer Service Turns Complaints Into Customer Loyalty– This is a terrific article by one of our favorite bloggers, Flavio Martins (@flavmartins).  I agree with him that in many cases, when you handle a customer complaint well you really do have an opportunity to make a customer for life.  He is right on when he says “The customer service representative should begin the conversation by stating they are ready to solve whatever problem the customer has.”  When we focus on the issue at hand and finding a solution we are less likely to become defensive.

2. How to Make the Most of Customer Feedback-  In this article by Inc. (@inc), they discuss how to “act on customer feedback” and divide it into “action buckets”, for things such as “immediate adjustments”, “revenue interlocks” and “game changers”. Once feedback is organized, everyone “has three roles to play: to receive the feedback, to be conditioned by the findings, and to participate in the determined course of action.” Determining how you will respond to the feedback is key!

3. Does Your Customer Feedback Process Say You’re Customer- or Company-Centric? I found this short article by Kate Feather of People Metrics (@PeopleMetrics) interesting as it brings up the point that “surveys are experiences too”. “Every interaction you have with a customer communicates, including feedback surveys themselves.” Are we asking the right questions to get the right answers from our customers to improve their experience and our business?

4. The cranky user: Strategies for handling customer feedback– This is a pre-Twitter article that I found but it’s still legal to Google search for articles right?  Anyway, this article by Peter Seebach is a good overview on how to get feedback from customers.  I think the best take away from this article is that when feedback comes in, do something about it and if you can’t, get it to someone who can.  I love to use the term “Ownership.”  Take ownership of the problem and see it through to resolution.

5. Hyundai keeping close tabs on Twitter as a means of responding to poor customer feedback– This is a very simple article but a reminder to companies that you should be searching Twitter as well as other social media in depth to see what people are saying about your company.  Hyundai (@Hyundai) is doing this and treating what people say about them on Twitter as they would any direct customer feedback.  This is no longer optional for any company given how public social media is.