If you’re already gathering consistent customer feedback, you’re way ahead of most service brands (just 53.5% are according to the latest study by Metrigy). But the brands with the most consistently awesome customer experiences aren’t just gathering feedback; they’re using it to track and act on trends as they happen too. From identifying key areas of improvement, uncovering blind spots and gaining a deeper understanding of your customers than ever before, here’s why tracking real-time trends in your customer feedback is an absolute game-changer, and how you can go about doing it.
Why is tracking customer feedback trends (as they happen) so important for winning on customer experience?
You could ask a coach of any successful pro team sports, be it basketball, soccer or cheerleading, who their highest performing players are, and what sets them apart from the rest, and they’d be able to tell you. They’ll also be able to tell you the powerful influence a star player can have in influencing everyone to up their game. The same goes for successful frontline teams.
Tracking trends in your customer feedback uncovers who your highest performing players are, at a location, branch, team and individual level. For example, your trend tracking may reveal that your Chicago branch has an average NPS score of 61, while your Houston branch sits at a 31.
Most importantly, it should show you WHY.
Does the Chicago branch have some secret sauce you can bottle and hand over to Houston. Do they practice excellent client communication? Are they always on time? Maybe they add some small touches that really delight clients: a bowl of candy on the counter and a friendly greeting for every person who walks in. If you know where the real difference lies, you can coach for meaningful improvements in the rest of your teams. Duplicating those things will allow you to raise all your teams up to perform like your best.
When you track trends in real-time, you have a constant finger on the pulse as to which locations, teams and individuals need a helping hand and which need a high five.
Tracking trends in customer feedback helps you understand specifically what employees could do to deliver more consistently awesome customer experiences. If an employee gets one piece of feedback that tells them the wait time was too long, that might not mean much, it warrants finding out more context at most. But if they get 30 pieces of feedback saying the wait time was too long, it’s clear that something is going awry and some specific coaching or support might be needed.
Using trends, you’re able to coach employees for specific improvements that will have a tangible impact, instead of using generalized CX training that may be completely irrelevant to their day-to-day.
AskNicely customer DebitSuccess, used this very method of trend tracking to coach their lowest performers to match their best. They went from having an inconsistent service delivery and a lack of empowerment amongst frontline employees, to winning on customer experience and satisfaction. As a result, agents who ranked in the bottom third, increased on average 21.5 NPS to more closely match the high performers.
Brands that know their customers have the happiest customers. Using feedback to track trends means you learn what matters most to your customers which helps you optimize your service offerings and experiences around that. For example, trends may reveal that all customers who left a high NPS score said they loved how speedy the service was. Now your frontline teams know the speed of the service should be prioritized, perhaps over other things.
The key here is tracking trends in real-time. Customer perceptions change so quickly that if you analyze trends on an irregular basis, often by the time you’ve analyzed them the customer's feedback has already changed. In order to keep up and keep delivering VIP experiences, you must track and act on trends as they happen.
How do you actually go about tracking trends in feedback in a way that’s effective, affordable and scalable?
Here’s what you need to be able to track trends in customer feedback effectively:
A consistent flow of real-time feedback: Real-time trend tracking requires real-time feedback. In order for you to see and act on trends as they happen, you need to be collecting small soundbites of customer feedback after every customer interaction.
Streamlined data: The customer surveys you send out should be made up of no more than 3 questions. Asking customers on a streamlined data point like NPS helps make analyzing and acting on the data SO much easier than if you were to ask customers to fill out a 20 question survey.
Data at your fingertips: You need a tool that helps you see the customer experience overview day to day. Managers need to be able to see in a glimpse 1) who needs help 2) who needs recognition and 3) which customers require immediate action.
Tracking trends in your feedback ensures you’ll never drop the ball. From boosting and maintaining employee performance to creating personalized experiences, customer feedback helps you see what’s important and drives action in the moment. The best part? It can all be automated with the right technology in place.
Learn more about how DebitSuccess used trend tracking to coach their lowest performers to match their best here.
