Responding to Negative Voice of Customer Feedback in a Retail Store
Responding to Negative Voice of Customer Feedback in a Retail Store
As a retail store that interacts with customers on a daily basis, it is important to know what the customers want. Customer demands and customer needs are 2 target areas that have transformed into goals for each of your competitors in a retail store. Feedback-based customer experience solutions are a path that every retail store in the retail industry is taking to achieve this goal. To be able to analyse and decode everyday interactions in a manner that is constructive and can be used as a metric to improve your retail store customer experience is a blessing that we have come across.
Getting feedback which is simple, and not too ‘out-there’ is just as important as one which is loud or aggressive and demands attention. What we mean to say is every piece of feedback is just as important as the other. Sometimes retail store customers give subtle feedback and sometimes they choose the not-so-subtle way. Voice of customer in customer experience is one among the many such dynamic feedback-based surveys in retail industry that can accumulate all the necessary information that you require as a retail brand and help you improve your retail store customer experience.
The retail market is changing at a relatively fast pace which also makes it a very competitive market. In such a case we often see retail store competitors imitating prices and products to beat the others in the game. However, this is not inevitable. All you need to do is tap into your customer’s psyche. This may seem daunting but, it is not that difficult with customizable VoC research surveys that are devised by customer experience companies as per your need! Customer experience is an opportunity to stand out among retail store competitors at a time like this and your one chance as a retail brand to give your customers exactly what they want; while looking at customer success, customer retention and customer expectations.
As a retail business that listens to its customers and works on effective customer experience, you are more likely to strike a purchase decision. Since we know that more and more retail store customers are looking at buying products/services from places that provide good retail store customer experience as opposed to other services.
Collecting feedback
When you happen to look for it, data or customer feedback is everywhere. Especially on digital channels. A lot of retail stores or retail brands choose to not tap into these gold mines of information which can be very harmful to the brand. This is because the information is shared and read by many customers or potential customers but since the customer has not tagged the retail company they are not receiving it directly or because the brand chooses to not look at these channels. How do you, as a brand avoid such mistakes? We can take a leaf from one of the leading retail stores that reward the employees who find unstructured VoC data on these social media or digital channels as a way to work on damage control and also encourage employees!
On the other hand, structured VoC feedback is also something that many companies sometimes overlook because less than 0.5% of customers will give you feedback after they have left the store. A good voice of customer survey does the needful to ensure feedback is collected in a systematic, detailed and organized manner.
Most retail stores that are taking up the voice of customer survey approach or any feedback-based approach to revive their system are often afraid of the kind of data they may come across. This is entirely justified. But that being said the outlook one should have to carry around such a process is that any kind of feedback you stumble upon is good because it gives you a chance to rework your retail store operation or retail store processes. Now, that we know why feedback is important and how you can come across it, let us look at the kind of feedback you may receive. There are three main types of voice of customer feedback:
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Positive feedback:
Positive feedback in any business is a great validating factor. It feels great to be told that you are doing something that your customer is clearly enjoying. Although, positive feedback is the least informational of the lot of feedback that you may receive. Here’s a way in which you can look at positive feedback - use it as a touch point in your customer journey that required an action which you took and improved. You can get insights into how your CX process has worked and whether or not your decisions are working. When you get positive feedback, use it to evaluate how you can take that approach with another pain point you are facing in your customer experience strategy.
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Neutral feedback:
A lot of retail stores overlook diplomatic/neutral feedback. It may not seem like something that you can gain any insight from but that is not entirely true. When you look at multiple neutral feedback you may find a trend that could lead you to a sudden breakthrough! A lot of neutral feedback could be coming in for a specific topic or touchpoint in the buyer journey. What you need to do is breakdown the feedback and categorise it in a manner that can lead to an insight. This way you will avoid a large concern when it is in a smaller stage.
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Negative feedback:
Almost 95% of retail customers do not give negative feedback. They choose to simply move on and find a better replacement for you. The 5% that do choose to give negative feedback - as disappointing as it may feel are actually doing you a favour by giving you this feedback. This means that you still have a chance to work on things that is affecting your business. So, negative feedback is not as bad as those customers that are disgruntled and choose to move on!
Responding to negative feedback
There are many types of negative feedback and many reasons to why they are done on certain platforms. Most complaints or feedbacks come through phones, social media or at the store directly. Some are public (at the store) where the goal is not to get a response but to draw attention to the matter. Social media complaints or feedbacks can be borderline vicious because they are easy to make and also customers are independent of thought and action when using social media to report a retail store complaint. This is done to mostly make others aware of the bad customer experience or service/product at your store. On the other hand the email/telephonic complaints are made to get a response that can help resolve the customer’s issues.
Answering complaints whether they are done privately or publicly has chances of increasing customer advocacy. Whereas, not answering these answers decreases the customer advocacy.
However, by sticking to the right method - which is answering any problem that your customer may be having, you will be working towards customer expectations and therefore making them an advocate for your company!
Leading customer experience companies like SonataGBW provides customer experience solutions that are as robust as the retail industry trends 2022. We can help you recover from the most difficult challenges in retail industry while improving your customer experience strategies. We have mastered retail industry trends and retail industry analysis in the voice of customer survey approach in customer experience management. Our real-time reporting platform also allows you to look at concerns while they are still young; avoiding any future concerns!
Our CX solutions are focused on transforming the total customer experience through surveys, metrics, analytics and auditing by using the CXM framework to combine physical measurements with digital Platformation™ capabilities. We are committed to finding the right customer experience strategy that can lead to a competitive advantage.
Sonata GBW is a global technology company specializing in customer experience CX measurement, platform-based digital transformation, supporting businesses to become connected, open, intelligent and scalable. Global coverage of more than 105 markets with over 27 years of market leadership through extensive measurement capabilities, powerful and intuitive reporting and analytics platforms give us the leverage to improve customer experience. It has presence across USA, Canada, EMEA and APAC regions. If you would like to know more about how we can assist you, please fill out the business enquiry form below.