Survey Results, Part 2: Gaps in Listening to Customers Exposed

In our "Marketing, Sales, and Operations vs. Experience" survey we asked "if you could change just ONE thing about how your company manages customer experience, what would it be?"

Responses reflected four major experience management gaps:

1. The need to listen to customers more and/or more effectively
2. The need for a specific strategy and specific tactics for managing customer relationships
3. The need to empower front line employees to best engage customers at the point of contact
4. The need to tie experience metrics to senior management compensation

A substantial number of respondents - almost 30% - couldn't/didn't answer the question. That essentially qualifies as a fifth gap - lack of insight or lack of employee engagement.

In this post I'll focus on Listening.

In addition to wanting to capture customer feedback, respondents wanted to their companies to act on that feedback. Seems almost silly to have to say that but we've all know companies that don't deal with feedback in an organized, coherent way.

Another respondent said his/her company would be better to actually listen to what customers want and to stop dictating to them. That's easier said than done in many cases. Investing in customer experience will cost "something" and must have an anticipated return. Companies must understand these costs and make the determination if those costs will retain customers, attract new customers, or increase the spending level of existing customers.

Still another respondent wanted more robust CRM data and for it to be available across the organization. I'm not sold that all departments need all data nor do all employees. Having said that, it's always helpful for the entire organization to better understand who they are serving and what that experience is like. You never know where an innovative idea may come from. This can be accomplished without opening all data to all people.

Next time, I'll focus on the gaps we found in Strategy and Tactics.

This brief survey has served to trigger more questions about the management and implementation of customer experiences that produce positive business results. I'll explore them in-depth the future. Let me know what questions you want answered.

Thanks to all who responded to the survey. It's still "live" so if you haven't participated yet, feel free.