Stretching Customer Feedback

We've made it through the first half of the Pre-Conference Loyalty Summit. All our speakers at least touched on the importance of customer feedback, and it got me wondering if I'm not utilizing what I have as well as I could be. Because my user base is more niche, we depend a lot more on having individual powerful advocates and their praise. To collect this information on a regular basis I previously developed a program for users to share their successes with our tools. When chatting with a happy customer this is usually easy to collect. What we've been doing with these stories is #1 capturing advocates for our brand and #2 using the kind words to justify ROI for new customers, or at renewal time.

JoAnna Brandi, Customer Care Coach, did a great presentation showing, with actual research and numbers, how happiness can effect others positively, not just with customers but in the workplace. Happy employees can add to the bottom line. At SalesQuest we have a team of analysts hard at work each day developing intelligence reports to be published and used by sales and marketing teams. Now when those users come back and tell me how helpful the report was, how much time it saved them, or how much progress they made with their job by using our reports, imagine how much satisfaction our analysts could get out of it. A designer sees their outfit on the red carpet and that is the drive that gets them to say, "I love my job." So for a (apologies team!) not-so-glamorous job, why can't our analysts get that same swell of pride that allows them the same benefit? That pride makes it easier to get up in the morning, and can bring you into to work wanting to accomplish more. This is just one way that I can take customer loyalty into a new realm, get others involved.

The possibilities seem expansive and bring to light that this resource can be stretched further than previously perceived. How else can we stretch customer feedback?

Your friendly guest blogger,

Chris Black

Director, Customer Support and Rollout

SalesQuest