The recent post on this blog highlighting SMS as the superior channel for soliciting feedback from your customers is perhaps simplifying a solution which is not always possible. While I do not want to take away from the many advantages of SMS, it is in many cases beneficial to adopt a multi-channel approach over a solely SMS one.
Engaging with customers via their preferred communication method creates a more personalised relationship between consumer and brand resulting in vastly increased response rates and improved brand perception. Additionally in certain geographies, industries and situations a solely SMS solution is just not a viable or potentially legal method for gathering feedback. In these cases your business and its Voice of the Customer program must be flexible in engaging with customers.
As the last post on this blog listed the numerous benefits of SMS, I think it best to demonstrate the strengths of some of the other channels:
- Email to web: Enables business to gather detailed verbatim comments, allowing customers to voice and explain their concerns, compliments and suggestions. Coupled with the NICE Fizzback artificial intelligence, comments left via feedback web pages can offer deep insight into the customer experience. Emails promoting this webpage are also the cheapest form of gathering feedback, both from the business and consumer perspective.
- Outbound IVR: Although it is undeniable that response rates are generally lower with IVR the channel offers some of the most immediate feedback on the customer experience, able to capture customer thoughts while still top of mind. And as we have commented at length on this blog, feedback gathered close to the experience is always of a higher quality.
- App based feedback: In the ever developing world of smartphones and apps, soliciting feedback via these new channels engages customers in a new and interesting way. Flexible, cheap and (depending on the app) gathering feedback immediately after an experience, app based feedback can gain valuable and actionable insight into the customer experience.
- Pull methodology: In many cases brands either have no way of capturing all or part of their customer’s details, or have no way to know when all or some of their customers have interacted with the brand. In these cases using pull methodology, (advertising feedback channels on point of sale materials or alternative communications to customers) is one of the only ways to gather feedback. Although SMS is one of the channels that can be advertised, it is always advisable to offer multiple channels on this collateral.
I hope this week’s blog has demonstrated to some degree a multi-channel approach to gathering feedback is in many cases the most beneficial to the business. The majority of our clients who currently use the NICE Fizzback Voice of the Customer solution deploy a multi-channel and multi-touchpoint solution to reach as many of their customers as possible, and gather insight into the entire customer journey. Unfortunately there is no one stop shop channel or methodology for soliciting customer feedback for every vertical, geography or situation, but at NICE Systems we will help your business to design and deliver one to fit your brand and customers.
Tom Lynam
For more info on NICE Fizzback's VoC Solution visit www.nice.com/fizzback