The Secret to Customer Feedback: All You Have To Do Is Ask (Or Listen)

Judged against the most fundamental customer service standard, my recent conversation with a Discover Card representative was a good one. She provided me with the desired information, and she did so quickly, pleasantly, and without any hassle.

Judged from the standpoint of a customer service analyst, the conversation was far from perfect. It also served to illuminate a major problem when it comes to the customer feedback process.

Businesses create a wall between customer service delivery and customer feedback acquisition. They consequently miss valuable opportunities to gain insight into the demands, emotions and opinions of their customers.

It is time to tear down that wall.

Since customer feedback is integral to the customer experience, businesses should work to integrate customer feedback acquisition into all interactions.

Doing so is extraordinarily simple:

n Assure agents are capable of recognizing, recording, analyzing and communicating feedback when it organically emerges on the call.

n If it does not emerge organically on the call, agents should personally ask the customer for insights.

Feedback: A Foreign Concept

Upon receiving a new credit card from Discover, I began the online activation process. After inputting information about my card and myself, I was told Discover needed to verify my identity by sending an activation code to the e-mail or cell phone number it had on file. Once I input that code into the system, my card would be activated.

I chose the e-mail option and then waited for my code. Ten minutes passed without an e-mail. Assuming there were issues with the e-mail server, I canceled that particular confirmation code and attempted to re-activate my card by logging into my existing Discover account (a vastly superior option that I somehow missed the first time).

Discover’s system would not let me do so. "This card has already been activated," it informed me.

The message made no sense. Since I never received the verification code, I obviously did not input my code into the system. By failing to do so, I never completed the activation process.

The situation raised two lines of question:

• Was my card really activated?
• If so, how was my card really activated? Shouldn’t I have needed to complete the verification process? Is there an issue with Discover’s security system?

In search of answers, I called Discover’s customer support team.

Conditioned to focus on specific customers and their specific, imminent issue, the agent naturally focused on the first of my questions. The very cordial – and very efficient – agent provided an affirmative answer. My card was activated.

In her mind, the problem was solved. My most immediate concern was whether I could begin using my card on purchases; by providing an affirmative answer, she eliminated the concern.

My mind, however, was looking beyond this individual matter. It was looking at the broader question of how my card could be activated without successful verification. It was looking at the broader concern of how a problematic security system could adversely affect me – or other customers – in the future.

I didn’t want my interaction to be reduced to an open-and-shut inquiry about the status of a credit card. I wanted it to be a source of knowledge that could create a better overall experience for all customers.

I wanted to give feedback that I knew would be of great value to the Discover business. Once Discover used that feedback to improve the experience, it would be returning the favor.

Upon sharing my concern – if I could activate a card without verifying my identity, what would stop a mail thief from doing the same – I detected clear confusion on the part of the representative. Unable to identify my commentary as broader customer feedback (and a broader recommendation to bolster the security system), the representative kept trying to bring the conversation back to this specific incident.

"Wait, I thought you had the card in your possession – did you lose it? Did you file a police report?"

I attempted to clarify that I was speaking hypothetically. I was not concerned about this particular card’s security, but I was concerned for others who may be victimized by a glitch in the verification process.

"Just so you know, you are never responsible for charges you did not personally authorize."

The representative, again, missed the point. Of course one can retroactively identity theft and unauthorized transactions, but fixing the security issue would help pre-empt such problems. I wanted her to see my interaction not as a guy asking about the status of his credit card but as a guy drawing attention to a potential security hole.

Eventually, my intention clicked. At that point, the representative put me on hold so that she could "pass this wonderful feedback to her supervisor." While it theoretically could have been a blow-off, my experience with Discover suggests that she was being sincere. Discover does care about customers, and once she realized she was receiving information that could help satisfy customers in the future, she jumped at the chance to share the insight with her team.

What caused the initial delay was not a lack of customer-centricity or even a lack of skill. It was a lack of familiarity with the idea of customer feedback.

In her universe – that of the conventional customer service interaction – customer feedback is a separate identity. One completes his customer service call and then transitions into the feedback survey. One purchases a product and then fills out a feedback form.

An integrated exchange – one in which the customer whose problem was resolved also wanted to share information that could solve future problems – was atypical.

It needs to become the norm.

Make Feedback Part of the Conversation

A customer engaged in a service interaction is a particularly insightful one. He is aware of a problem. He has his own ideas about how the brand can resolve that problem. He is able to assess how well the brand ultimately delivered his desired resolution. He can devise recommendations for improving that performance.

Why not seize the opportunity to uncover those insights? Why not pay attention to the customer’s problem and to his overall perspective on the matter? Why not ask deeper questions to understand why a thrilled – or furious – customer feels the way he feels? Why not use the customer’s perspective as a means of preparing for future interactions?

Turning a deaf ear to a customer’s proactive feedback costs a business access to that information. Shifting the customer to a static survey – one which can neither guarantee participation nor ask personalized, deeper questions to those who do participate – greatly neuters the value of the information.

To separate the feedback process from the service delivery process is to ignore the obvious synergy between the two concepts. It is to ignore the human, candid element of customer sentiment is best captured in a human, candid environment.

Customer satisfaction is an emotional concept. One does not make brand attachments from a wholly objective, detached standpoint. He makes them based on how the brand’s performance – or lack thereof – made him feel.

The best customer feedback process, therefore, works to capture as much of that human emotion as possible. It seeks to understand how customers feel and what customers want at critical moments of truth.

Customer service interactions produce these critical moments of truth. Truly customer-oriented businesses—and agents--are always prepared to capture the insights.

When those insights arrive organically, they take immediate notice. When those insights do not emerge organically, they use deep, yet respectful questioning to acquire them.