Every consumer brand that has reached a certain scale would tell you that customer feedback is important but also hard to collect. That customer feedback is important is well understood. You can read more about how some great brands leverage customer feedback here. But why is it difficult?
A customer today interacts with a brand at multiple touchpoints be it brick and mortar stores or online stores. Most customers do a thorough search before making any purchasing decision. They need training once they have onboarded. They need customer support as they go through the entire user experience of utilizing a product. Every step is important, but poses different challenges and opportunities. A whole new customer base can show up during valuable information search and can be converted faster. Whereas a great way to support the loyal customer base is with an equipped support team. Satisfied customers would be open to buying more from the brand while the unhappy customers can help brands with user feedback to improve on the product.
Why is automation no longer optional?
B2C companies today are selling to more customers, present in more markets (geophysically, linguistically and time zone wise), and interacting at more touch points than ever before. These touch points also include social media channels such as Facebook messenger, Instagram, Twitter 1.0, and sometimes, via email as well. At this scale, manual push or batch processing of the surveys can lead to negative experiences and hamper customer retention.
Brands are trying to deploy intelligent systems to keep track of all conversations including social listening.
Thankfully, this is where automation of survey flows comes to the limelight. Using automation, you can trigger the surveys using your CRM and with no human intervention. Automation can also help you grasp customer satisfaction scores from patrons and obtain real-time responses. A well designed and defined market research can identify pain points, capture negative feedback, keep the customer feedback surveys systematic and enhance the level of satisfaction among various people.
In this blog, we will see how Merren can help organisations elevate customer experience and obtain some best practices of collecting responses via automated customer survey.
What are some common methods for gathering customer feedback?
Here are some common omnichannel approach of gathering customer feedback:
- Messenger based approach of WhatsApp surveys, Facebook messenger surveys.
- SMS and RCS are a good option to reach people who do not use the internet to interact.
- Website chatbots are robust to collect complex consumer data around the clock.
- AMP email surveys , embedded email surveys and in-signature email surveys can capture feedback from hard to reach user base.
Why does automation work well to map customer journeys?
To build a useful customer journey, one needs:
- Active customer participation
- Standardized and repeatable process
- Action oriented insights
Automation delivers on all these elements.
By automation, using messenger based survey platform applications such as Facebook messenger and WhatsApp is economically viable. The responses on these platforms are usually faster, have smaller demand on cognitive processes, and are in-context in nature.
In-context means that when customers have had a transaction or an interaction with a brand, the experience is still fresh in their mind. They are still ‘in-moment’ or ‘in-context’.
WhatsApp continues to be extensively used for business purposes with around 100 billion messages being exchanged globally daily. Facebook or Meta messenger, which is also a high response platform can also be used to seek customer or product feedback.
Launching feedback forms multiple times a day especially for large sized organization might be a nightmare. Manual procedures are prone to errors, important questions may get edited or the feedback process can get manipulated.
Automation will eliminate human intervention of a non-transparent feedback collection method via messenger surveys or dynamic email surveys.
Generating automatic feedback surveys for patrons can help brands redirect their resources to other marketing channels. Organisations can collect customer data swiftly in this manner which will reduce time taken for grievance resolution, offering a good experience or making improved communication strategies.
A survey will reap better response when it is captured close to the time and place of customer interaction. With Merren’s automation services, it is possible to collect customer feedback as the systems are auto-launched as soon as customers share their personal details (email address or contact details).
Present feedback collection methods are manipulated and outdated :
At present, most surveys are deployed using manual methods or via platforms that have a much lower clickthrough rate and higher churn rate. Most of the surveys are unanswered or deleted halfway through completion. So most of your precious consumer data does not reach organizations.
Manual feedback collection systems are also manipulated. A manipulated process is where feedback is manually and selectively launched with the expectation of a positive review for a positive customer service.
The collection methods are unsystematic and processed in batches as per their segregated categories. Each touchpoint also has varied metrics that cannot be compared to one another.
Meanwhile, the current feedback system does not have a uniformed organization wide view. The survey quality can also get affected by different departments by the time they are deployed.
Automation via Merren messenger platform can remove manual manhandling and augment your decision making processes.
Here is how Merren’s automation can collect customer feedback
At each relevant customer touchpoint, Merren will deploy feedback systems that can get organizations to grasp in-time information about their potential customers. This way, it can be easier to reach out to them when a lead is in the ecosystem.
Even though customer touchpoints can be a complex journey, Merren makes it simpler by having a customized flow for different milestones.
When all data is collected and collated, Merren clients can get a global view and real time visualisation of all feedback gathered through the consumer purchase pathways.
Using Merren to detect churn and view analytics:
Merren uses messenger based survey collection platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook messenger. With click through rates as high as 90%, surveys will be subjected to high response rate and collecting relevant information. This in totality will bring better analytical power for brands.
Grasping in-context feedback means faster resolution of grievances enables swift action taking protocols from brands. This domino effect will bring positive brand response from their customer base.
Automated feedback collection systems are devoid of human intervention which is also economically feasible. So resources can now be allocated to other departments where it is required. The entire feedback strategy can be effective and all future strategies can be centered around automation.
Opt for an automated Facebook, WhatsApp and email survey:
While curating surveys from our pre-existing templates, clients can deploy any surveys to any customer with trusted CRM (customer relationship management) platforms. With our Zapier integration, you can auto deploy surveys and trigger them at certain touchpoints, for example at a checkout or after a live chat. Messenger based surveys can be auto launched and all analytics is available on the Merren dashboard. This is a simple method where you can differentiate between promoters and detractors using required filters.
Clients can seek various type of feedback using our interactive elements and templates. Build your own customer satisfaction surveys – CES surveys (customer effort score) , CSAT and net promoter score or NPS surveys- all of which are compatible across omnichannel platforms.
Build a customized automated tool called a chatbot:
AI powered chatbots are going through various upgrades just so they can be smarter, bring faster responses and can be customized to provide feedback even when the team members are not around. The average user expects a response at any time of the day. This is feasible only when you have a chat bot equipped to handle queries and complaints. Using Merren, you can build your own chat bot feedback form here.
Automate your chatbot so that it can be integrated into different channels such as social media, brand apps, websites etc. Overall, chatbots are cost effective, interactive and fun, and brings data to the table. Read more about the usability of chatbots here.
Collect data with satisfaction metrics of NPS, CSAT and CES:
Before you create a satisfaction score questionnaire, assess company goals and your target audience. Merren makes it easy to build your own questionnaire and capture satisfaction metrics via an omnichannel approach. You can choose from a predesigned survey template namely NPS survey, CES questionnaire or CSAT score questionnaire.
Conclusion
Merren is a robust platform that empowers organisations to upgrade the way they collect and use customer feedback. Obtain a high response rate and build your customer feedback strategy, close the feedback loop and supercharge your CX capabilities. Using automation and artificial intelligence in customer feedback survey design and data collection, marketers can remove manual handling of data processes faster.
Say goodbye to long surveys and welcome the messenger method of feedback collection! Now you can automate and fast track your feedback collection process. Check out our 14 day free trial here. If you are hesitating to take the leap, you can opt for a free consultation call here. Let us have a chat!
