Managing Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is important. Collecting this information, analyzing and responding where necessary is equally important to ensure the demanding needs of today's consumers are met.

The traditional channels still exist, but add to it the social media networks and we now have a wealth of useful information to help us make strategic decisions. The challenge is making a conscious effort of managing these well. An article in the E-Commerce Times outlines some best practices for companies to manage customer feedback:

1. Create clear objectives and garner company support. Objectives for the management of customer feedback should be aligned with the company's overall goals.

2. Actively encourage and promote customer feedback. The more feedback companies receive from customers, the more insights they will have about their business.

3. Offer customers multiple feedback channels. People vary greatly in the way they prefer to communicate, so be sure to give your customers several options in communicating with you.

4. Centrally collect, store, manage and analyze customer feedback. By consolidating all feedback and survey data into a single centralized system and using that system across the organization, feedback managers are able to gain valuable insights into what customers need, want and value most, as well as identify important trends and patterns in the data.

5. Use and take action on customer feedback. Many organizations collect customer feedback, but tend to fall short when it comes to actually using and acting on that data..

6. Resolve outstanding customer issues promptly. Nearly all businesses have some customers who complain about something at one point or another. What's most important is how your organization handles those complaints.

7. Close the feedback loop with customers. Inform your customers whenever your company initiates change as a result of their suggestions or feedback, and let them know what changes you made.

8. Create a company culture that is committed to using customer feedback. To maximize awareness, build an employee rewards program around the positive feedback that your company receives from customers.