Customer Relationship Management
Integrated Customer FeedbackTM
THE PROBLEM - In today's customer-facing businesses, very few companies get ongoing honest feedback from customers-not from individual efforts and not from an overall opinion. Consequently, in service industries, customers are generally dissatisfied and displeased with how they are treated and the service they receive. There is no real respect for the business customers bring and certainly there are few customers who feel special. Some say it is because there is little or no training for employees entering into the service business. Others say the standards for service have been lowered. Another perspective is the profit pressure for companies to make money and cut budgets so much that service is not considered a necessary expense. The list is endless. But the bottom-line impact is a world without service to customers. And, unfortunately for companies who survive on service, this has led to little loyalty and minimal repeat business. For marketers this is an almost insurmountable problem. How do you market to this customer base? How do you convince your company that customer feedback and satisfaction are critical to your company's long-term success?
THE SOLUTION - Integrated Customer FeedbackTM (ICF) is a solution that facilitates ongoing customer feedback about initiatives, marketing programs, promotions or other service-driven actions. By implementing ICF you would now know the answers to some of these questions:
- Are my customers generally satisfied with the company's service? If so, which services? If not, which services?
- Is my marketing message effective? What message do the customers take away? Is that the message I meant for them to take away?
- What suggestions do my customers have? Are those suggestions recorded and being considered? How do they fit into our overall strategy?
- What do the customers say about my competition? What are the discernable differences between my company and those competitors? Are there gaps I need to bridge?
- How loyal are my customers? What do they want/need to become/stay loyal?
- How can I integrate Integrated Customer FeedbackTM into my ongoing marketing plan/strategy?
- Has the promotion, project, product being evaluated been a success by established benchmarks?
- Will the customers I evaluate still be customers in 90 days, 6 months, a year?
THE RESULT - With Integrated Customer FeedbackTM, you've successfully and quickly acquired important information about a program you've implemented. You've also gotten information that helps you to evaluate the effectiveness of a specific expenditure-not to mention, you've then been able to integrate those key nuggets into your ongoing planning process. Being nimble and flexible in market planning is a critical element of success in today's business environment. The ICF flexibility should not be confused with the constant reactionary knee-jerk actions that have been prevalent in industry for years. Instead, the ability to take honest, unbiased customer feedback, evaluate it on an ongoing basis and integrate it into future programs is an incredible competitive advantage itself. You've created benchmarks that help to measure and evaluate future programs--before, during and after you've implemented them.
It is amazing how a program so simple and easy can be so powerful when it comes to market expenditures and staying in touch with your customers. The program basically provides a repository and facility to talk to customers, record that feedback and really listen to what they say by making adjustments that bring superior customer satisfaction.