by Julie Niziurski, Research Manager at PATH

As a researcher, I’m always on the lookout for customer feedback in action.  Little did I know I would play the main role in my own customer experience journey. 

Rule #1 of Customer Feedback - Don’t Ask the Question If You’re Not Ready for the Answer

Like many people during the pandemic, I got the sweetest quarantine companion – a new puppy! Recently, we had a scary situation where my dog cut his paw and needed quick help. We went to our trusted vet, he was stitched up and we were sent happily on our way.  

A few weeks later, we went back for a checkup. I was stunned when the vet was ill-prepared for our visit, handled my dog roughly, and rushed us out of the office.  

To give them credit, the vet office has a great best practice in place – a post-visit survey to ask about my experience. As you can imagine, I wrote an honest 1-star review thinking the vet would take this as a learning opportunity. The researcher in me thought my feedback is a gift! The vet couldn’t get better if they didn’t know what happened.   

This is where the vet broke rule #1 of customer feedback. When I went back in for my puppy’s vaccine visit, the same vet confronted me about my review. I was simply told to shape-up or ship-out – take down my bad review or find a different vet.  

At PATH, we tell our clients all the time – the only thing worse than not trying to improve your customer experience is asking what you can do better and still not trying to improve your customer experience.  Even worse than that? Telling your customer their feedback doesn’t matter. 

Rule #2 of Customer Feedback – Angry Customers Can Become Your Biggest Fans, with the Right Approach  

Unfortunately, my one negative experience with this vet erased the two full years of positive experiences. But it didn’t have to turn out that way. 

In our customer voice work at PATH, we send our clients over 2,000 customer issues a year. That’s a whole lot of angry customers! We work with our clients to make sure they have the right processes and staffing to reach out to those customers within 48-hours. The most fascinating part? The angriest customers become the biggest fans when they feel heard. In fact, they can become your most loyal customers. Why? Because they know things happen and see you are going to work to solve their problems.  

Unfortunately for this vet, I will not recommend them to anyone. In fact, when people ask me about the vet, I will share only this negative experience and suggest they go somewhere else.  Their opportunity to build a more loyal customer was lost by how they handled my feedback.  

Rule #3 of Customer Feedback – You're Not Going to Succeed without the Right Process  

It’s hard to get negative feedback and react well! We’re human after all. A survey measures the customer’s perception of their recent customer experience. While their perception may not match your own, it is important to understand that their perception is the reality for that customer. How do you handle customers’ realities? With a great process: 

For my vet, the process could have included:  

1. A touch base after the review was submitted. The vet clinic had the right idea – asking for customers’ feedback after their visits. This is a great way to get honest feedback from customers. They missed contacting the unhappy customer shortly after the review was posted. Generally, we recommend clients contact unhappy customers no longer than 48-hours after the negative feedback. 

2. A conversation at the next customer interaction. Not everyone is good at communicating in the moment. The first thing I heard from my vet was “take down the review or find another vet.” At the end of our conversation, the vet said “I’m sorry that was your experience.” Starting here would have made a huge difference, but that requires good preparation and training. We work with our customers to come up with a standard way to productively respond and take action on negative feedback.  

   Don’t leave it to chance because emotion takes over. “I’m sorry that was your experience” can lead to a powerful conversation where the customer – now feeling validated and heard – can give you insight into where things went “wrong” in their view and how the business can improve. This kind of conversation will be a win-win-win: Customer feels heard (win), you learn how you can improve your business to grow revenue (win), and you lessen the likelihood of the customer speaking poorly about your business (win). 

3. A follow-up after the visit: A simple acknowledgement from the business that the customer’s perception is valid even though it is likely different from their own can go a long way, but once isn’t enough. There is a rule that we need to hear things 5 times in 5 different ways to truly understand. This is one of those times. 

It seems like it should go without saying but bullying a customer to take down their negative review is not the way to keep a customer. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon, particularly in an age when bonuses, promotions, and job status are based on these reviews. Businesses – whether consciously or unconsciously - can get too focused on the numbers that they pressure customers to give positive feedback. There are only short-term wins with this kind of strategy. Long term, people are going to go somewhere else, and you’ll lose the opportunity to improve and build your competitive advantage. You may be able to bully customers to give you 5-stars on a website or a piece of paper, but you can’t control what they say other places, like personal interactions and social media.

Conclusion 

How can businesses be great at handling honest customer feedback?  We can: 

1. ASK FOR IT: Talk to customers about their experiences and build trust by being a good listener. 

2. QUICKLY FOLLOW UP: Address negative customer feedback as soon as possible. Within 48-hours is ideal. This allows you to address your customers’ concerns quickly (they will like that) and hopefully stop them from talking to others about their negative experience (you will like that). Even if you can’t fix everything they mentioned, it helps to know you heard them. 

3. TAKE ACTION: Taking insights from negative feedback and testing them with your other customers will let you know how to best improve. However, even if something is an issue for only one customer, it’s still an opportunity to learn and strengthen the relationship. Like I said before, feedback is a gift, and we refuse it at our own risk.