Do you wonder what your customers really think? It may seem obvious, but perhaps the best way to find out is to ask them. There is quite a lot of buzz around the concepts 360-degree review or Voice of the Customer (VOC) with roots in the world of Six Sigma. There are touch points throughout the customer experience that you can pick up on to gain insight. The sooner those insights are understood, reviewed and the data processed for new ideas or corrective action to your supply chain strategies, the happier the customer will be, and a happy customer means a loyal customer.
There are numerous ways to capture VOC. Box post cards, follow-up telephone surveys, end-of-call IVR surveys and email surveys are all options to gather vital feedback information about the customer's experience. Focus groups and interviews are also great tools; just make sure any agency you hire has been given focused parameters, otherwise you will be wasting resources and time. Postcards will need support for entering or scanning the data, and then for analysis of the data. Outbound calling is expensive and success is sometimes challenging. IVR surveys are great, but you need some expertise in surveying and telephony to make this really work.
That leaves us with email surveys. These are both cost-effective to distribute and easy to analyze. As supply chain strategy consultants, we find the post-call email survey is a great tool that can create near immediate interaction for true 360-degree or VOC reaction. Many of the ASP services have templates already developed and ready to go; look at Vovici (www.vovici.com) for one. If you are able to collect an email address for shipping confirmation or order acknowledgements, you can use that information for an immediate customer feedback module. You can start with the customer experience concerning the telephone call. It makes sense to send an email within two or three weeks to understand the customer's acceptance or pleasure with the product they purchased, but don't wait several weeks to gather information concerning the customer interaction. The process of data collection needs to be somewhat scripted, consistent and timely.
If the customer is not pleased with an aspect of your service, product, or supply chain strategy they will leave, and it is far easier and less expensive to keep the customers you have than to try to acquire new ones. So listen to your customers and grow with them. By collecting these customer insights, your future mailing, product and supply chain strategy decisions will be supported by real data about what your customers think and want. In the end, does anything else matter?
F. Curtis Barry & Co. is a national consulting firm that works with eCommerce, catalog, retail, manufacturing and wholesale distributors on projects focusing on supply chain strategies, order management systems, warehouse management systems, inventory management, 3rd Party Logistics, and to reduce freight costs.
There are numerous ways to capture VOC. Box post cards, follow-up telephone surveys, end-of-call IVR surveys and email surveys are all options to gather vital feedback information about the customer's experience. Focus groups and interviews are also great tools; just make sure any agency you hire has been given focused parameters, otherwise you will be wasting resources and time. Postcards will need support for entering or scanning the data, and then for analysis of the data. Outbound calling is expensive and success is sometimes challenging. IVR surveys are great, but you need some expertise in surveying and telephony to make this really work.
That leaves us with email surveys. These are both cost-effective to distribute and easy to analyze. As supply chain strategy consultants, we find the post-call email survey is a great tool that can create near immediate interaction for true 360-degree or VOC reaction. Many of the ASP services have templates already developed and ready to go; look at Vovici (www.vovici.com) for one. If you are able to collect an email address for shipping confirmation or order acknowledgements, you can use that information for an immediate customer feedback module. You can start with the customer experience concerning the telephone call. It makes sense to send an email within two or three weeks to understand the customer's acceptance or pleasure with the product they purchased, but don't wait several weeks to gather information concerning the customer interaction. The process of data collection needs to be somewhat scripted, consistent and timely.
If the customer is not pleased with an aspect of your service, product, or supply chain strategy they will leave, and it is far easier and less expensive to keep the customers you have than to try to acquire new ones. So listen to your customers and grow with them. By collecting these customer insights, your future mailing, product and supply chain strategy decisions will be supported by real data about what your customers think and want. In the end, does anything else matter?
F. Curtis Barry & Co. is a national consulting firm that works with eCommerce, catalog, retail, manufacturing and wholesale distributors on projects focusing on supply chain strategies, order management systems, warehouse management systems, inventory management, 3rd Party Logistics, and to reduce freight costs.
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