Gathering Customer Feedback with FAST INSIGHT

CANARY WHARF, U.K. - July 11, 2013 - PRLog -- In a World of fast developing social media, where we can communicate in real time with the touch of a few buttons on our phones, people are spreading the word of their experiences before reports for senior management have even been started!

So, where can we find a feedback method that is accurate, real-time anonymous, minimizes bias and is cost effective?

The best current feedback choices are surveys via automated phone, web, and mobile devices.  Some companies still offer the good old traditional agent-guided phone interviews as a preferred method over automated and web surveys...This is not cost effective and usually, the presence of an interviewer can cause the customer to alter or lean towards a more ‘acceptable’ answer to the questions about their shopping experience.

Can I use automated phone, web and mobile device surveys together?

This way will definitely increase the response rates without increasing the bias but take note, people tend to perceive questions differently when they see them as opposed to hearing them. The benefits of using mixed methods of collecting surveys out way the potential negatives and here’s why;

The more methods used, the more convenient for the customer, and the more surveys collected. Using a mixture of survey collection methods reduces sampling errors by collecting more surveys. (Since precision is a function of sample size, the larger the sample, the smaller the error).  Having multiple survey choices increases the probability of immediacy to the experience.  Online skewing is not as problematic as it once was, as internet usage is now the norm. For the large majority of survey uses, the fact that different survey methods may slightly favour different answers is usually not a problem anyway, thereby keeping the data comparable over time.

The truth is, that as we measure customer experiences, we need to guard ourselves against going overboard with too much emphasis on statistical biases, sampling errors and the link because our goal is to give the customer the most convenient methods for them to provide us immediate operational feedback that we can then take action on to improve our service.  

The purpose of Customer Experience Measurement is not to test a one-off hypothesis, extrapolating from a sample to the entire population. The purpose of Customer Experience Measurement is to allow our customers to tell us, through quantative and qualitative feedback, how we are performing operationally – including things we do well and areas we can improve in.

The more dissatisfied your customers become, the more likely they will be to tell their friends.  The worse the customer experience it seems, the quicker the news spreads and the more widely the news is shared. When companies make it easy for customers to complain, and handle those complaints quickly and appropriately, the dissatisfaction starts to fade.  

The FAST INSIGHT platform allows you to provide multiple methods of feedback for your customers, methods that are easy for your customers to use, minimize bias, gives immediate feedback and collects data from very happy and not-so-happy customers (and everyone in between).
So, here are some questions to ponder;

✓ Are your survey collection methods unbiased and collected in real-time?
✓ Are you providing multiple methods for your customers to present their opinions?
✓ Have you made it convenient for them to give you feedback, or do they have to search for a way to tell you about their experience?

Remember!  We are looking for IMMEDIATE, DETAILED, ACTIONABLE information.