4 Effective Tools for Putting Online Feedback into Action
Ever been put into a position where an online customer is asking you a question about a specific issue and he presumes you can pick up where your colleague left off? Meanwhile you have no prior knowledge of the matter and no documentation to refer to for checking the status of the issue?
I think you can see where I’m going with this – this is obviously not an ideal situation to be in, for both you OR your customer.
If you find yourself in this position, what you and your organisation need to do first is look inward. As discussed in a previous blog post, different departments need to be involved in digital customer experience if an organisation wants to take perceptions and expectations of their online customers seriously. For, example, if you request website feedback and your customer takes his valuable time to provide you with suggestions or ideas, at least thank them for their cooperation. And to take it one step further, do something with their feedback so that they are not left in limbo. Think about it this way, digital customer feedback touches many facets of an organisation, whether that may be product development, IT, marketing or other services, so don’t isolate this data to one department or team.
Mopinion’s feedback analytics software allows its users to share and act upon specific feedback items using four follow-up tools: Action, Email, Labelling and Notes. In this blog, I will outline the four action management tools as well as their advantages.
1. Action: Assign feedback items or tasks to colleagues
“Sharing is caring”. Ever thought applying this concept to your online customer feedback program might help lighten your load? With Mopinion’s “Action” tool, users can assign tasks to colleagues as well as track their status from the moment they are assigned until they have been completed.
The advantages:
- It is very easy to assign tasks to colleagues
- Tracking status can be viewed – includes four different phases: Assigned, Accepted, Done, Completed. This is, of course, a very convenient way for managers to monitor progress.
- Deadlines can be assigned per item so colleagues know when the task must be completed.
- Email notifications are sent to you when the status of a task has changed.
- Multiple tasks can be assigned to multiple people for one feedback item. For example, a loyal customer complains that his/her mileage points are not correctly reflected in the MyPage account and threatens to switch to another provider/airline/competitor. In this case, you can assign a task to a customer care agent with the purpose of easing the customer. Meanwhile, you have also assigned a task to IT to get the MyPage working correctly again.
Figure 1: Screenshot from the Mopinion platform – Internal notification email that action has been completed
2. Email: Share and respond to feedback items by e-mail
With the Email feature , users have the option to share feedback items with colleagues via email or send pre-defined (or tailor-made) email responses to customers directly from the system. For example, perhaps your CEO is not necessarily following up on customer feedback, but he also doesn’t want to miss out on some of the interesting feedback messages that customers have composed. With a few clicks, these messages can be delivered to his/her inbox.
Advantages:
- Colleagues are provided with an update for when they need to handle a feedback item.
- Pre-defined responses can be sent out to customers to let them know you reviewed or are in the process of handling their feedback. For example, you can set up standard answers for “Thank you” emails or “Problem solved” emails.
- Emails are tracked and dated in the system so you can always refer back to them if/when you need to.
Figure 2: Screenshot from the Mopinion platform – E-mail update received by online customer in response to feedback
3. Labelling: Categorise data by adding labels
As feedback volumes increase, so do the number of textual patterns we see in qualitative data. And although wording is always a little different among feedback items, it often involves matters of the same nature. These are things like page timeouts, comments about pricing, bugs, lack of contact information, and so on. This is where the labeling comes in handy. The labeling tool, as you might have already guessed, allows you to categorise your feedback using labels. In a previous blog, we have outlined how the labelling can be applied in your online feedback tool.
Advantages:
- Easy to “tag” or assign items to a specific feedback category
- Filter/search for specific feedback categories within the system
- Items can have multiple labels depending on the content of the item
- You can see who created the tag and on which date.
Figure 3: Screenshot from the Mopinion platform – Labelling feedback items
4. Notes: Add notes for yourself or your colleagues
This is one of the newest tools in the Mopinion software. With this feature, users can write and send notes to one another regarding specific feedback items, including suggestions, comments about the feedback, etc. You can also “tag” colleagues so that they receive a notification email. And you can leave notes and reminders for yourself that can be set to a certain date. For example, maybe you not want or need to take action right away, but the item could be relevant for you somewhere later on down the road.
Advantages:
- Allows you to write notes for yourself and/or for your colleagues about specific feedback items.
- You can set up a reminder for yourself via email at a specific time and date. For example, say you spoke with a customer today and he asked you to call him/her back the following day at 5:00 pm. You can then easily schedule this using the software and get a email reminder the following day to carry out your task.
- Allows you to discuss individual feedback with your colleagues and build up a dialogue around a certain issue.
Figure 4: Screenshot from the Mopinion platform – Notes exchanged between colleagues regarding a feedback item
Sharing is caring: action management for the win!
Not only are these four action management tools a great way of tightening communications among departments and teams, but also keeping the right people informed of the progress and ongoing tasks within your customer feedback program. When this is done right, you are helping your customers close the loop and improving the customer experience.