Customer Feedback Is (Almost) Useless
Unless you gather it properly
Bill Gates said, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." This makes sense, but using such customers as the only source of such information may bias your strategic thinking.
This may be why few MS Windows users are big fans of the operating system.
But there is a better way, simple and complex at the same time.
Customers seek revenge
Twenty years ago, unsatisfied customers could merely grumble and complain to their co-workers. These days, they have a powerful weapon against companies: social media.
A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article stating that “the percentage of consumers who have taken action to settle a score against a company through measures such as pestering or public shaming in person or online has tripled to 9% from 3% in 2020, according to the study."
So, more unhappy customers go public and share sarcastic stories about their bad experiences online.
But, according to some sources, “Only 1 in 26 customers will tell a business about their negative experience; according to customer service facts, the rest simply leave.”
So, only about 3.85% of unhappy customers raise their voices and complain – not too many.
Moreover:
– Some of these active complainers are people whose allegations are unjustified.
– Some customers complain solely because they believe the world is unfair to them.
– A part of these 3.85% of clients are simply driven by a bad mood, which has nothing to do with your product.
So, only a fraction of your truly unhappy customers will tell you what’s wrong with your product. We must listen to them and take their opinions into account, but this is not enough.
NPS as a feedback killer
NPS, or Net Promoter Score, appeared about twenty years ago and became a go-to tool for many marketers. You may have been asked many times, “How likely are you to recommend our product to your friends?"
However, it has its limitations, and so do all quantitative methods.
When you pose such a question to your customers, it is easy to aggregate and analyze the responses. But you don’t need an easy-to-use tool; you need one that provides you with relevant and useful data.
Such surveys usually take the form of online questionnaires. A respondent must choose from a limited number of options (such as ‘Yes’ or ‘No’). But answering “I would recommend my friends to buy your product, but…” is impossible.
Moreover, if respondents say they won’t recommend buying your products, you’ll never know why.
Tools like NPS and the like are not tailored to find out the reasons behind customer behavior.
Happy customers as a more reliable source
In his book “Managing For Results” Peter Drucker said, “Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems. All one can hope to get by solving a problem is to restore normality… The results themselves must come from the exploitation of opportunities.”
Unhappy customers may tell you what they dislike about your product. But happy customers can provide you with more valuable information about what they like. You may leverage it to make your product offer even more attractive.
Knowing what your customers dislike is useful. Knowing what they like is priceless.
Customer feedback is (almost) useless for innovation
Imagine you’re the CEO of a traditional car maker. Some of your customers are unhappy, and you find a way to talk to them to uncover the reasons for their dissatisfaction.
Let’s say, they tell you that the seats are uncomfortable, the engines are too noisy, and the audio system isn’t user-friendly.
You can eliminate these problems and make your cars evoke fewer negative emotions.
But while you’re busy addressing these issues, you may miss the moment when newcomers such as Tesla or BYD steal your customers.
If we ask only for feedback, we may overlook some invaluable insights for innovation.
What can we do?
We need to talk to our customers – as much as possible.
We shouldn’t hide behind meaningless questionnaires and online surveys. We need to leave the office, meet customers face-to-face, and ask them dozens of questions.
We should also avoid direct questions like ‘Do you like my product?’ because they are about us, not them.
We have to ask customers what they feel and think when they see our product on a shelf, buy it, use it, and fix it if it is out of order.
We must ask them about their hopes, fears, superstitions, wishes, and dreams.
We should ask them what problem they solve by employing our product.
We have to ask our happy customers, unhappy customers, furious customers, and even non-customers – people who could have bought our product but decided against it.
Ask less, observe more
We need to walk in customers’ shoes.
Watching your customers' lives and work yields even better results than talking to them.
Try to study their routine with your product without invading their privacy.
· How do they choose it?
· How do they buy it?
· What problems do they solve with it?
· What issues do they face during purchase, usage, and warranty service?
· How do they currently solve them?
· How can you solve all their problems better than it is possible today?
The more data you collect, the better your product offer will be.
Read also: What is NOT a strategy?
Like the story? Restack it. Follow me on Substack notes – I post daily.
Visit my website. If you’re a Telegram user, join my channel.
Hi Svyatoslav. My experience - customers tend to give negative feedback more than positive. I'm part of that group too. I ran into a problem with Deutsche Bahn once and was pissed it was taking them forever to reimburse me for getting my train canceled. There was a site (don't remember the address now) where 90% of the people were complaining. It kind of made sense. When you get positive experience, you're like "I paid for that, it's nothing special." But when your experience is negative, you go berserk. That was me and thousands of others :)
Thanks for the article Svyatoslav, it's an important point about the limitations of NPS and similar scoring surveys; whilst 'the scores' might be useful for publicity purposes, deeper research and listening is essential to really understand customers' views and needs (and those of potential customers).
It can be enlightening to sit in on research groups and listen to what people really think about a product or service (often very different to what a company might believe or hope that they think!).