difference between a conventional feedback system and an automated one

Customer Experience (CX) is a hot topic in today’s business landscape. According to Forbes, only 36% of companies were caring about customer experience in 2010, but now that number has risen to a staggering 89%! Companies are identifying CX as a surer way of gaining a competitive edge from other similar businesses.

The fate of your company is in the hands of your customers. Your company gets its revenue through a customer. No customer means there is no business. Depending on their experience with your company, the customer will decide whether he wants to continue doing business with you or not. Customer experience is a broad term. It encapsulates many factors, from product quality to customer interaction and complaint resolution. Many of these factors can be taken care of by using a single, handy process. This magical process is called automated feedback.

So, what’s the difference between a conventional feedback system and an automated one?

Well, both work to achieve the same goal. That is to know what your customer wants and what makes them happy.

• While in a conventional feedback system, you gather and analyse data manually, an automated feedback system gives you a head start by collecting and analysing data automatically. All you have to do is review and make decisions based on the analysis.
• Accuracy levels are very high when using automated feedback systems because the chance of human error is minimised, and it significantly saves time and cost. No more sending the same person the same feedback twice or forgetting to send it to them at all!
• Work that is done manually is tough to upscale. With a manual process, as you scale, you must invest more in human resources. This is not the case in an automated cloud-based feedback system. The software works just fine when you upscale it and doesn’t require any further input. Whether you are collecting feedback from 100 or 100,000 people, the process is the same.
• Transparency and accountability are also increased when using an automated feedback system. When we work manually, reports and files are not always handy to be shared with stakeholders. With a cloud-based system, however, all data, reports, and files are saved in the software and easily accessible by the management and stakeholders from anywhere they log in from.

After looking at these differences, it is clear that automated feedback systems are far better to use than ordinary ones. Let’s see in-depth what an automated feedback system do to your company in terms of improving customer experience and hence, growing your business.

1) Improves Customer Satisfaction

Improving customer satisfaction means listening to the customer and knowing what they want. Asking for feedback is not the solution to everything. We have to make the customer realise that their feedback matters to us, and the opinion they have is valued. This, in turn, develops trust and a sense of satisfaction in the customer regarding their experience with the company. Enhanced customer satisfaction is directly proportional to the customer experience. Therefore, taking regular feedback can benefit your firm from top to bottom.

2) Helps to Catch Problems

Feedback helps your company catch problems that can interfere with your brand image, thus obstruct you from building a good clientele base. Even if you test your product multiple times before sending it out to the market, there can and will still be some errors or possible improvements that you and your team might have overlooked. Customers are the actual end-users, and their experience with the product can tell where the problem is or how a few improvements can make your product a bestseller.

When you receive an area of feedback from one customer, you must work refining this pain point and make sure other customers are not running into the same problem. This keeps on helping you to improve and, in most cases, innovate to increase the number of happy customers.

The crux is, a feedback system helps you catch problems and improve the customer experience you provide.

3) Wins Customer Loyalty

Winning customer loyalty is often one of the long-term goals of a company. This can only be attained when your customers have true trust in your company. Here’s why loyal customers are so valuable:

1. Loyal customers are more likely to refer you to fellow friends and colleagues.
2. They tend to spend frequently and more.
3. More referrals mean more customers and, ultimately, high revenue streams.

Listening to customers and acting on their request/advice is an effective way to win customer trust and loyalty. The 360 feedback loop helps you listen to the customer and act accordingly. This, in turn, improves customer experience, wins customer loyalty, and adds to your profit.

4) Reduces Churn Rate

If your goal is to reduce the churn rate, you need to identify why a portion of your customers wouldn’t want to do business with you ever again. Is there something else that they’re looking for? Do they want more in terms of value for their money? Did they have a bad experience with customer service? Wouldn’t it be great if you had the answers to all such question so that you could:

1. Offer them a solution or compensate for service failure
2. Make sure other customers don’t have to face the same state of affairs

Using a feedback system lets you know where the company is lagging and helps to catch problems in production, marketing, management, or customer service in realtime. Providing an exceptional customer experience will aid in retaining customers, which is the only way to reduce the churn rate.

An automated feedback system is a critical step to improving your customer experience. It gives you an idea of what the customer is expecting of you and in turn, helps you make important decisions to improve their overall experience with your company. It can give you a chance to improve your offerings and catch problems that your staff might have ignored, or you had never thought of. Gathering regular feedback shows that your company is focusing on the customers’ needs. It instils in them a sense of trust and loyalty with the brand, which in turn helps you retain customers, reduce churn and attract new customers. All of these factors add up to generating positive revenue streams over time.

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