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 comment, Denis. Yes, that's why customer feedback can't be a reliable source of data for product development, let alone strategic decisions.
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!).
When I help a company with the strategy, I often insist on conducting research in the form of a focus group. It is always enlightening for the customers. Thanks for the comment!
Unhappy customers are usually the loudest. A few may offer praise. The satisfied majority probably won’t say anything.
You have to seek real world feedback. This needs to go beyond yes and no, as you said.
I like bring up use cases. Using cars as an example: do you do your own maintenance? How often do you take long trips? Do you haul things? How often do you have passengers? And so on.
Some of dissatisfied customers are simply not our customers. They have expectations our product is not supposed to meet. But if we listen to them, we may start modifying our products in accordance with their requirements – and lose our core, satisfied customers.
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 comment, Denis. Yes, that's why customer feedback can't be a reliable source of data for product development, let alone strategic decisions.
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!).
When I help a company with the strategy, I often insist on conducting research in the form of a focus group. It is always enlightening for the customers. Thanks for the comment!
💯 on observation.
Unhappy customers are usually the loudest. A few may offer praise. The satisfied majority probably won’t say anything.
You have to seek real world feedback. This needs to go beyond yes and no, as you said.
I like bring up use cases. Using cars as an example: do you do your own maintenance? How often do you take long trips? Do you haul things? How often do you have passengers? And so on.
Some of dissatisfied customers are simply not our customers. They have expectations our product is not supposed to meet. But if we listen to them, we may start modifying our products in accordance with their requirements – and lose our core, satisfied customers.