Acting on customer feedback

Customer feedback is a great learning source for any business looking to improve their competitive edge. But actually acting upon this feedback is the most important, an often neglected next step.

Feedback from customers is a valuable asset for many businesses. It provides them with customer insights which can assist in improving services, products and overall customer experience. Feedback has also been shown to improve a business’s customer retention rates.

But while feedback does create a competitive advantage for businesses, that advantage doesn’t just come from collecting the feedback. It is how a business chooses to act based on this feedback that makes all the difference.

Businesses may like to treat the challenges that come to light through customer feedback as projects with defined deadlines and expected outcomes. Details such as how long it will take to address a challenge, what strategies should be used or what actions need to be taken, should be taken into consideration when
developing the projects.

An action log can help to maintain the momentum and focus of these projects, and after a reasonable period of time, may serve to give businesses a good understanding of whether goals and targets were achieved in an adequate space of time.

Communicating results with customers is the next important stage. When businesses make any changes that are customer-based, it is important to keep customers who were part of the feedback process updated. This encourages customers to continue giving their input if they know they are being heard and are responsible for any positive changes.

A business may want to conduct follow-up feedback once customers have experienced the improvements. Customer feedback, after all, can be the reason for short-term programs as well as entire company transformations.

When collecting feedback, the overall task isn’t in the listening, but the actual implementation and follow-up. The more businesses can get their customers to participate in these kinds of projects, the more likely a business is to grow.