Thanks for pointing it out. It is true, sadly. 5% close the loop (inform people what they did with the feedback), but still I think it was 10-12% or so that acted on Feedback. 95% collected feedback, about half monitored it effectively over time, and just 10-12% actually did something… and even less told their customers what they did.

And, btw, even though that study is not some 2-3 years gold, things have changed slightly. Still the 5% of closing the loop remains the same as it was, we just have higher numbers of people acting on it and monitoring effectively (I am going to have to track the new numbers and post an update.)

One point…I think you might have misinterpreted the Gartner quote. It’s not that only 5% of companies act on the feedback. The quote was that “only 5 percent *inform customers* what they have done with that feedback”.

Nearly all the companies we see respond fast to “red flag’ feedback…but the best of them make a daily habit of touching base with the majority of respondents who are either mostly positive or exclusively positive. IMO, this is what separates the greats from the goods.

Thanks for stopping by. I could not agree with you more — the purpose of listening is to try to resolve the problem and provide a solution. The solution may not always be what the customer wants it to be – but if it is a fair solution and the customer feels we listened, we accomplished what we set out to do. I do like the tip about body language… something that is discussed during call center training but most people quickly forget since they are not in a person-to-person setup.

Great tips, thanks.

You’d be surprised how many organizations have a hard time “getting over themselves” and working on a fix. They don’t think they have a problem to begin with — that is the biggest problem.

And, I do agree with you, if you cannot admit the problem exists – you cannot fix it.

Thanks for the read!

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On a personal level, listen with the intent to understand, not to argue. If you are meeting the person complaining in person, step out behind barriers such as desks and display cases. Watch your body language (relax).

I’ll be reading.

http://survey.cvent.com/blog/customer-service-feedback/0/0/are-you-a-good-listener-4-tips-to-better-listen-to-customer-feedback

I do think a lot of organizations need to “get over themselves” first and accept maybe they don’t always know best, which is obviously the first (and maybe the most important) step. Otherwise, the rest of it is all for naught because they wont walk away with actionable items.

Appreciate the follow and the read.

Esteban

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Excellent point, as usual.

I cannot emphasize enough what you just said. Root cause was hot for a few months last year and has pretty much dissapeared now, unfortunately. My feedback methodology focuses almost exclusively on that while doing point-of-service feedback escalation.

And that is why it works.