Customer Feedback Loops

Feedback Loops are powerful tools to validate your brand's performance.Instead of guessing and wondering how your company is doing, a Feedback Loop provides you real time customer insights. And they're surprisingly easy to implement and manage.

For example, if you order a pizza from Pizza Nova tonight chances are you'll get a call tomorrow asking about your pizza.

Domenic Primucci, President of Pizza Nova explains, "We have a Customer Courtesy Call program where we try to call a lot of our first time customers back the next night. When we call we don't get into a big long survey. All we say is, 'This is Pizza Nova calling, and we'd like to know how your pizza was last night?'"

Pizza Nova's Feedback Loop is brilliant in its simplicity:

• Customers are surprised to receive the call, because companies rarely follow up with customers after the sale — especially for a $15 to $25 purchase.
• The question is open and honest, which leaves lots of room for customers to share their impressions.
• It gives Pizza Nova an opportunity to hear directly from its customers, measure its performance, and respond if there are any issues.

The program is also an incredible branding tool. The calls reinforce Pizza Nova's commitment to quality and demonstrate that the company really does care.

Build Your Feedback Loop

Feedback Loops are surprisingly easy to create. You can develop a Feedback Loop in three steps:

1. Be Direct: No one likes to fill out an onerous survey about their buying experience. Get to the point as quickly as possible. Craft simple, direct questions to ask your customers how your company performed. Pizza Nova asks, "How was your pizza last night?" What question can you ask that is direct but open ended to solicit customer feedback?
2. Be Systematic: Make the Feedback Loop consistent and structured. When is the best time to solicit feedback? Is it right after the purchase, during the engagement, or maybe at certain points in the year? Find the best time to engage your customers for feedback, and apply that process to as many customers as possible.
3. Be Human: The best Feedback Loops involve the human touch. Yes, you can use a post purchase survey, but the data is limited. Pick up the phone and ask your questions. You'll be surprised how much a customer will reveal when you speak with them.

Make the Feedback Loop Visible

Every morning Domenic Primucci gets a report from the Customer Courtesy Call team on their prior day's activities. It's one of the first things he reads. The insights reveal so much: what's working, what isn't working, and where they can improve.

Feedback Loops are most effective when they are visible and your team can act on the results. Share the reports openly with your team, and bake them into your weekly management meetings.

Staying close to your customers makes your team more agile and effective.