Your most dissatisfied customers are your greatest source of learning.
Bill Gates
If you create a love affair with your customers, they will advertise your brand themselves.
Philip Kotler
Last year I participated in WebSummit, the largest technology event in Europe and one of the largest in the world, held in November in Lisbon.
The first talk I attended was by Survey Monkey CEO Zander Lurie. It was when I first heard the term " Feedback Economy ." I was amazed by what I heard in those 20 minutes, where Zander explained why we are in the Age of the Feedback Economy.
Below I make a summary:
The digital revolution has opened doors to customers, allowing them to leave feedback anywhere, anytime. With rising expectations, companies have been urged to incorporate customer feedback into daily and long-term decisions.
The combination of these two forces has shaped what we call the Feedback Economy, an economy driven by feedback: opinions, comments, and criticism.
The Feedback Economy presents a vital opportunity for businesses to succeed or fail . With consumers interacting with each other to decide how they feel about a brand, feedback holds immense power when it comes to choosing where consumers will spend their money.
Using customer feedback is no longer an option. It's a must for any company that wants to stay alive and prosper.
This finding is completely in line with our belief and purpose, which is to help companies implement a feedback culture in their daily lives .
In this new era we are living in, in the Age of the Feedback Economy, one of the greatest assets a company can have is the trust it generates for its customers .
People want security and companies they can trust. They want to trust that they will always be well-served, with respect and empathy, regardless of the situation. They want to trust that they will have a pleasant experience throughout their journey, with genuine attention and care.
When a company successfully generates positive customer experiences, it receives the greatest reward: customers recommending the company . Public recommendations are a clear indication of trust and admiration for the company.
Public reviews are incredibly powerful because consumers trust what customers say about companies. Positive reviews attract customers, while negative reviews can drive them away, especially if not properly addressed.
To generate positive recommendations, you need to generate positive experiences. The better the experience, the more and better reviews the company will receive from its customers. There's no secret, but there's certainly a technique for making this happen consistently.
To generate positive experiences, it's necessary, first and foremost, to continually measure customer satisfaction throughout their entire brand journey, at every touchpoint. Continuous measurement is essential for improvement and evolution.
The 5 main points of the consumer's purchase journey with the brand:
1. Search
The journey begins when the consumer is searching for a business. At this point, it's essential to have a high rating on search engines (Google My Business, Trip Advisor, Yelp, etc.) and a high number of positive and responsive reviews to rank better (SEO) than your competitors. This is what Google calls the ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth) .
2. Purchase
The purchase is the culmination of the journey, as it's where the experience truly unfolds and the perception of the brand is created in the consumer's mind. It's the first moment of truth, and it's here that you should focus your efforts to ensure the customer leaves satisfied, but ideally, delighted. If they leave delighted, the company gains a promoter, a brand ambassador. And there's no better advertisement than a happy customer recommending your company to everyone.
3. Feedback
Immediately after the purchase experience, it's crucial to conduct a post-sale survey to gauge consumer satisfaction with the brand. This is the time to listen and measure customer satisfaction. If the experience was positive, you should ask them to leave a public review on one of the search channels. Public reviews directly influence your company's online reputation (your rating), which influences Local SEO and your ranking on search channels such as Google My Business, TripAdvisor, Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp, and others. These are the channels consumers use when searching for businesses.
4. Treatment
Did you spot any issues with the experience? Address them as quickly as possible and rebuild trust with your customer. Additionally, respond to all reviews publicly, demonstrating your company's attentiveness and listening to customers, earning consumer trust and improving your brand reputation.
Everyone wants to buy from someone who cares about their customers and solves their problems. That's why responding to public reviews is crucial, as they're a company's primary showcase for listening, expressing gratitude, and resolving issues, in addition to reinforcing its brand values. At the point of searching (the zero moment of truth), these responses will make all the difference between a consumer choosing your company or a competitor.
5. Action
Use customer feedback strategically and intelligently, create action plans, and make decisions focused on improving the experience throughout the entire journey. This generates more positive reviews, impacting your brand's search engine ranking (SEO) and online reputation. Ensure customer feedback reaches the very end of your operations.
There's no point in receiving and analyzing feedback if it doesn't reach the operations department, which is where the main point of contact with customers occurs. Feedback should be used as a source of intelligence, focusing on improving the experience from the perspective of those who matter most: your customers.
As we can see, everything is interconnected. Customer experience and online reputation are practically one and the same, as one cannot exist without the other. The more united and interconnected they are, the better the results.
What's the secret to winning in the feedback economy?
The key to success in the feedback economy is listening to customers at every point of contact with the company, transforming data into actions that promote better experiences, strengthening customer trust and satisfaction, and turning them into loyal buyers and brand promoters.
But for all of this to actually work, the company needs to understand that it's not just about implementing a process.
It is essential to gain knowledge about the methodology and, even more importantly, to implement a customer-centric internal culture, promoting, praising, and receiving feedback with an open heart, feeling a deep and sincere empathy for the company's customers.
It's necessary to "open your ears" and learn to listen. This is Harmo's value proposition.
We have a clear and true purpose: to contribute to the dissemination of the feedback culture in our country.
The platform is the tool that allows us to apply our 360-degree feedback intelligence management methodology, helping our clients implement a culture that places the customer at the center of decision-making.
Welcome to the feedback economy!
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