Letting Feedback Speak for Itself

Suppose I’m a customer of yours. You and I have recently interacted. I was a little disappointed in how you served me and my company. I have some feedback about my experience―how it made me feel and what I think you might be able to do better in the future. For example, I might have a particular point of view about how prepared you were for our phone call or how you handled a specific question I asked.

But I’m not going to share it with you. Instead, I’m going to share it only with your boss.

It will be up to your boss to decide whether to pass along my feedback. Maybe she will. Maybe she won’t. Perhaps she’s worried that you are having a bad enough day, already. Or maybe she’s not having such a great day herself and wants to avoid the hassle of delivering even constructive feedback to one of her employees.

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Moreover, it’s up to her to decide whether to pass along my feedback exactly as I provided it, or to sugar coat it, softening the blow to you and obscuring some of the details.

How would you feel knowing that your customer had shared feedback with your boss, but being unsure what, exactly, that customer had said?

If you’re like most of us, you’d be frustrated―unless you have the opportunity to hear the customer’s feedback quickly, directly and in the customer’s own words. Even if it hurts a little bit initially, you want to know you can do a better job in the future. The truth is the best employees just want to do a great job for their customers, and honest, direct and immediate feedback helps you do that.

So why do so few companies provide simple ways for frontline employees to hear feedback directly, immediately and in the words of the people they serve? It’s a challenge that our next guest on the Net Promoter System Podcast has set out to address.

Amy Pressman, cofounder of the customer experience software maker Medallia, says that companies should always share customer feedback with frontline employees, even if it’s awkward. She has a wonderful perspective on how great companies incorporate customer feedback into their day-to-day operations, and she offers some of the best practices of customer-centric companies.

Medallia and other providers of technology, as well as other support for the Net Promoter System^®, can be found on the vendor section of the Net Promoter System website.

You can listen on iTunes or through the player above. Click here to browse more Net Promoter System podcasts.

 Net Promoter^®, Net Promoter System^®, Net Promoter Score^® and NPS^® are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

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