Last week, I received the motor insurance policy for the coming year – great! No run with the law. However that is not the only cause for my elation. Here is the story. Before I settled for this particular service provider, I sought for quotations from various companies. This is after my previous provider ‘deserted me’ for making a claim. I thought insurance meant to cover you in event of an accident! That’s for another day.
Back to the search for an insurance cover! That was my end goal. I sought for quotations as a first step by contacting seven companies. I sent out emails to three companies, filled in online quotation forms for three companies and made a visit to one. The feedback and the rate of response was the first point of difference in my experience with each of them. To cut the long experience short, I choose one of the online providers, which was my sixth out of the seven companies to check from. Why? While I was filling in the form, someone from that company was quite responsive. After filling in my contact details, even before completing the other details, I received a call – yes, while I was still online. The agent not only walked me through the process, but also explained the features and various options available. This was a relief after trying to get details from other providers.
At no point did the agent say that she will get back to me, which was a notable difference from all other providers. The knowledge levels, the speed of response and courtesy were all fantastic. This is a rare combination, which companies struggle with in trying to meet their customer expectations. Was it the cheapest? No! The agent provided cost options that would suit my needs, but it was not among the cheapest of the quotations before or even after I received this one. This was an incredible experience, especially from an insurance service provider. This may not be unique, but it reflects an on-going process where companies are trying to meet the expectations of their customers.
The above experience provided an opportunity to re-evaluate the way companies go in understanding levels of satisfaction by their customers. This helps in developing customer retention strategies. Customer satisfaction is all about understanding a customer’s expectations from a company compared to their experience. Customer retention is not only about meeting expectations but also developing mechanism to keep the customers loyal and engaged. This is a continuous process.
Many companies conduct customer satisfaction surveys, where they commission an agency at the end of the year or after every six months. The agency then contacts target customers and gets their feedback across various attributes or touch points or whatever other area of interest. The customers provide their expectations and then rate their experiences. Based on whatever platform or model agreed with the agency, the company goes ahead and provides a customer satisfaction score. Some companies use this as a key performance indicator for the concerned units. But is this enough to provide feedback?
While the above is a common practice, studies show that this is approach does not provide a complete picture from a customer’s perspective. To have a better understanding, there is need not only for constant feedback mechanism, but also ways to keep customers engaged with your company. This is also applicable to governments and other organizations.
How do you have constant feedback?
1. Intercepts / Exit interviews
This approach has been used for a long time. It is provides quick feedback on a given transaction when it is still fresh in customer’s mind. It avoids generalities by having queries for a specific visit. In this case, companies deploy independent staff (or an agency) to ask the questions to customers immediately upon exit. Disappointed customers are able to ‘pour’ their issues, hence raise a red flag on time while delighted customers highlight their experiences immediately. This kind of survey should not take more than ten minutes.
2. Transaction based feedback.
This is a mechanism where a company seeks feedback from customers after any transaction. It is a short and precise feedback mechanism related to that particular transaction. In this case, one contacts the customer through telephone and gathers feedback from the experience with the company. This should take place within 72 hours of the transaction.
For example, when a customer makes an enquiry to open an account, banks can develop a quick feedback mechanism to ask the customer about that particular experience only.
Companies are also directing customers to their call centres. This approach is effective in understanding how the call centres are handing customer queries, transactions or complaints.
For online interaction, one can either use a pop-up or a scroll with link at the bottom of the site to direct the customer where to provide feedback on the online interaction taking place at that moment.
3. Dedicated complaints handling mechanism.
For companies dealing with high traffic of customers on daily basis, chance is that someone will complain. It is important to have a dedicated complaints management system. While it is important to handle customer issues within the first experience, complaints arise. Studies show there is a higher satisfaction among customers whose complaints are well handled. They end up spreading a good word of mouth about the company. With the emergence of social media, it is important to be up to date when customers post complaints and respond as soon as possible.
4. Continuous engagement with customers.
Gone are the days when companies only used surveys to gather feedback. Technology now also plays a significant role. As mentioned above, social media has influenced the way customers engage. Online and mobile based platforms are effective means that companies can employ to have short, fast and cost effective feedback.
For instance, some companies have threads on social media through which they collect feedback from posts entered by customers.
At the end, customers are looking for value in meeting their needs. On the other hand, companies are continuously developing ways to not only compete for share but also retain their customers.
The above are a few pointers that companies can use in building up customer feedback. The day-to-day experiences, which sometimes may seem tiny, are the building blocks to a wholesome experience. By taking care of these minute experiences, companies will not only gather valuable insights, but also manage any issues that may arise, within reasonable time.
The regular surveys (once or twice a year) surveys are important in providing an overview on the overall customers’ experiences. However, it may be too late to provide such feedback and in most cases they are based on memory rather than ‘real’ experience.
Back to the above story – I not only completed the transaction over the phone including the paying premium, but also received a scanned copy of the policy after two hours. The courier the delivered the original documents by the next day. After a few days, I received an email requesting for feedback on the insurance policy issuance process, of course with a heading ‘we value your feedback’.
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pauline@episodesresearch.com
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