by Joanne Chapman-Reps | Sep 2, 2016 12:00:00 AM
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that we believe strongly in soliciting customer feedback to help improve the customer experience. In fact, in this post, Seven Ways to Impact the Customer Experience, asking for customer feedback is first on the list.
That’s great, right? Getting customer feedback is easy enough…send out a few surveys, conduct some interviews…and you should be all set. But getting the feedback is only part of the equation. Knowing how to use that feedback to positively impact the business, and the customer’s experience, is the ultimate goal.
With that goal in mind, here are five ways to effectively use customer feedback:
1. Respond in a timely manner
Too often multifamily organizations have extremely loose, or even no, set discipline and structure for reading and responding to surveys. Create feedback mechanisms to leverage insights that customers share and then do something meaningful with the feedback.
2. Fix the issues identified
This may seem obvious but many companies who ask for feedback neglect to follow through on fixing the issues identified. For example, if a resident describes a specific problem they have experienced in their apartment or a common area contact them as soon as possible to learn more and then make sure to correct the issue. If you ask customers their thoughts and then never respond or address the issues and concerns identified, they will certainly be less likely to provide feedback again.
3. Communicate survey results to the team
Voice of customer feedback is a gift and it is critically important to share feedback (both positive and negative) with your team. If specific issues are identified by a customer, involve the team to learn more about the situation before talking to that customer. This will help provide background information and is often critical in learning additional context to accompany the comments. And, remember to celebrate success. Often customers will mention an associate by name and they should know! Feedback is an excellent opportunity for associate and/or team recognition and goes a long way toward building morale.
4. Look for trends
Often we look at surveys one instance at a time. That is perfectly relevant when responding to an individual customer’s feedback. However there’s even more value in taking time to review changes over time. By taking a step back and looking at survey results in aggregate, trends are revealed that would have been missed otherwise; this “big picture” approach highlights opportunities for product and/or process improvement.
5. Create tools to address common themes identified by feedback
When trends are identified, it is helpful to create tools and/or process improvements for these common issues. For example, if communication is commonly mentioned in a negative way, review the feedback with the team and then create some tools for easy communication such as templates for common items mentioned. When communicating with residents consider various methods and cadences and create transparency so that residents understand their feedback is responsible for the change. Creating transparency and communicating solutions with residents demonstrates that you care and are listening to them. And remember, it is important to create tools that are customer-friendly and not internal process-focused, and always ask for additional feedback to help with incremental improvements.
Improving the multifamily customer experience should be the primary reason you gather customer feedback and using the feedback to change team behavior, company policies and procedures is the best way to achieve that goal.