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Customer feedback is a gift. I believe. I wrote a whole book about it called Hug your Haters .
Indeed, customers are doing you a huge favor by taking the time to alert you to a problem when it occurs, or of their happiness, when it is the result.
The value of feedback is enhanced today when the customer experience drives purchasing decisions like never before. Therefore, listening and analyzing customer feedback is important to ensure the company meets or exceeds escalating expectations.
But it's not always wise to change the customer experience based on customer feedback, as you'll see in this article.
My friend Tom Webster said a lot of clever stuff, but one of my favorites is this one:
The plural of anecdotes is not data.
The plural of anecdotes is not data. Click to post a Tweet
Anecdotes are just a story. And we often use stories, starting with customer feedback, to shape our company's operations.
This is dangerous. But it happens all the time.
How did this happen? How do we end up in a place where listening to customer feedback can be really harmful?
When You Don't Look Careful Enough for Customer Feedback
As discussed in Hug Your Haters, Your customers are talking about you in more places and in more quantities than you probably know. For example, the majority of tweets about a business DO NOT tag the business in question. In addition, there is a lot of talk about companies in discussion boards and forums, where many businesses are not actively listening.
The result of not listening diligently is a diminishing amount of customer feedback. Therefore, when you haven't gathered a lot of customer feedback, the feedback you SHOULD get grows in importance. In this case, it's easier to turn specific pieces of feedback into anecdotes: stories that you can use to shape customer experience Report how you like it.
When you catch exceptional customer feedback
We miss really angry customers. And we remember our extremely happy and satisfied customers. This is human nature: we discuss differences and ignore averages.
But, when you look at customer feedback and try to decide what it all means, it's easy to remember five stars and one star disproportionately, turn that whole little piece into anecdotes and call them is data.
Danger: Customer Feedback Ahead
Why is this a problem? What are the downsides of using just a few customer perspectives to help shape how and why you do things in your company?
Because truth requires math. An anecdote – even a great and powerful one – is but a blip. One (or even a few) customers should never shape your customer experience decisions, no matter how convincing, powerful, or insightful their feedback is. The opinion of one customer, in one situation, in one moment, based on their particular experience is just that: ONE experience.
And that can create a completely different and dangerously contradictory response.
I have learned this lesson quite clearly in the past 30 days.
When customer feedback conflicts
My latest book is called Talk Activation: The Complete Guide to Word-of-Word Customer Generation . Written by Daniel Lemin, Talk Trigger Comprehensively researched and includes a 4-5-6 system for creating word-of-mouth strategies that engage customers (4 Chat Trigger Requirements; 5 Chat Trigger Types; 6-Step Process to create a Chat Trigger).
Since the book is about word of mouth, Daniel and I decided the book should have one standout feature; something to create conversation among readers.
We include three. First, the cover is hot pink and features alpacas symbols. Second, the inside has a tear-off pass that the reader can use to introduce the book. And third, the book has a guaranteed iron cover. The back of Talk Trigger write the:
If you bought this book and didn't love it, go to TalkTriggers.com and send a note to the author. They will buy you ANY other book you choose.
So far, out of MANY thousands of readers, we've only had twice in return for this very special guarantee.
And they taught me how dangerous anecdotal customer feedback can be.
First negative customer feedback
The book has been out for five months, and we received our first request for another book, from Gary. Said he didn't like it Chat trigger . Want a copy of Mark Schaefer's Instead, Marketing Rebellion . Good choice. We received his proof of purchase and sent him the book. Before delivery, we asked him what he found missing in our book. Gary says:
The number of examples is very small compared to the number of domestic companies.
Fair enough, Gary. Although it would really be a long book if we wanted to write case studies about all the companies in the country.
Second negative customer feedback
One month forward. James emailed us. Said he didn't like the book. Ask for $200, get a non-print book on digital marketing instead. We weren't too excited about it, but we bought it for him, and then asked him what he didn't like about it. Talk Triggers? James replied:
Too many case studies. The book relies on them too much.
James, meet Gary. Gary, meet James. You will get along very well.
And that's why anecdotal customer feedback can be dangerous. Same book. Completely opposite response.
Make decisions about your customer experience based on math, not story.
Create your customer experience decisions based on math, not story. Click to Tweet
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