The “Course Topics” series from Manage Train Learn and Slide Topics is a collection of over 4000 slides that will help you master a wide range of management and personal development skills. The 202 PowerPoints in this series offer you a complete and in-depth study of each topic. This presentation is on "Customer Feedback".

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
Customer Feedback
CUSTOMER CARE

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
The Course Topics series from Manage Train Learn is a large collection of topics that will help you as a learner
to quickly and easily master a range of skills in your everyday working life and life outside work. If you are a
trainer, they are perfect for adding to your classroom courses and online learning plans.
COURSE TOPICS FROM MTL
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Copyright Manage Train Learn 2020
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Commons license.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
INTRODUCTION
In profit-driven organisations, the customer is not a flesh-
and-blood human being but a statistical source of revenue.
This can only work where organisations have a monopoly on
a product and where customers are prepared to put up with
what they get because they have no other choice. In
customer-focused and competitive organisations, on the
other hand, the customer is someone with whom we need
to have an ongoing, developing and mutually-beneficial
relationship. A key part of this relationship is that we know
at any one time how the customer experiences our products
and services. This is why it is vital for us to create customer
feedback systems.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK
The best customer feedback technique is the one that
provides you with accurate, balanced and worthwhile
information.
There are eight main feedback techniques...
1. studying sales or usage figures which indicate how much
your product or service is currently being used
2. asking customers what they want
3. acting as a customer of your own product or service
yourself
4. using focus groups
5. carrying out customer surveys
6. listening to comments that current users make
7. using customer questionnaires
8. meeting with your front-line staff.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
USAGE FIGURES
The most important current information on whether your
customers are satisfied with your service or not is whether
they continue to buy from you or use you.
However, while information on sales may be an accurate
indicator of how well you are doing at present, it is no
guarantee that you are delivering the product or service
that the customer really wants. It may be that you are at
present the only supplier in the market, or that you are the
cheapest or the most convenient.
Looking at current or recent usage figures doesn't ensure
you will keep your customers. Remember, it costs at least
seven times more to attract a customer who has deserted
you back than it does to get him in the first place.
"The customer is a rear-view mirror not a guide to the
future." (George Colony)

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
ASK THEM
The simplest way to find out what people want from your
service is to ask them before you deliver it.
1. The hairdresser: "How would you like your hair, sir?"
2. The waiter: "Steak, medium, rare or well-done?"
3. The trainer: "What are you hoping for as a result of
attending this course?“
We often hesitate to ask our customers what they want in
case we cannot deliver exactly what they're looking for. We
also hesitate because we misguidedly think that what they
want must be what we want. When we are the experts and
have produced the goods or service for so long, we become
complacent and believe that we don't need to ask because
we instinctively know what our customers want.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
BUGGED
When German car company, Volkswagen, designed their
new Bug car, they exclaimed on their feedback page:
“We want you! Your ideas, preferences and constructive
contributions will be evaluated and fed into the
development process. So tell us about your impressions and
ideas for the new Beetle. We’ll do our best!”
As a result, air-conditioning is standard in all Bugs and the
ashtray and lighter are optional. Who would have guessed it
if they hadn’t asked?

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
FRESH COLOMBIAN COFFEE
A group of front-line staff were holding a seminar on
Customer Care at a hotel and were asked to write down
what they wanted from the coffee break.
Their list, in order of importance, read...
1. a change of scene
2. a toilet break
3. quick service
4. hot coffee-flavoured drink
5. clean cups
The group leader then asked in turn the hotel manager, the
catering supervisor and the waiter what they thought the
group wanted. The manager topped her list with "quick
service"; the supervisor "good clean china" and the waiter
(who was from Colombia) "fresh Colombian coffee".
As a result, the guests received everyone's idea of top
service except their own.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
CUSTOMER WINDOW
The Customer Window is a method that has been used for
many years to identify what the customer is getting that
they want and what they are getting that they don't want.
To create a Customer Window, draw a square with 4
quadrants as follows:
1. Top left: What the customer wants and doesn’t get
2. Top right: What the customer wants and gets
3. Bottom right: What the customer doesn't want and gets
anyway
4. Bottom left: What the customer doesn't want and doesn’t
get.
Now based on feedback from customers and analysis of
your product and service, fill in each quadrant.
By finding out what the customers' needs are and then
comparing them to what you are delivering, you can
become more efficient (by not wasting time and money on
giving them unnecessaries) and more effective (by spending
more time and money on giving them essentials).

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
BE YOUR OWN CUSTOMER
One of the most obvious but underused ways to find out
what your customers experience when they use your
service is to be a customer yourself.
You can do this by...
1. walking the customer journey yourself and seeing things
through your customers' eyes;
2. acting as one of a special group of customers and
walking the customer journey eg as a person in a
wheelchair; a foreign customer who cannot speak
English; a child.
3. putting new recruits through the customer journey to
get a fresh pair of eyes;
4. phoning in as a customer to find out how quickly your
call is taken;
5. writing in as a customer and seeing the kind of response
you get.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
FOCUS GROUPS
A "focus group" is a representative group of customers
whose job is to provide you with information on their needs
and preferences. Focus groups are valuable if you have a
range of customers with quite different needs.
Selfridge's Food Hall in London's West End used a focus
group to identify that they had three distinct customer
types.
There were...
1. local customers who were regular users and wanted
personal attention
2. after-work shoppers who wanted speed and
convenience
3. tourist shoppers who visited the store for the
experience and the chance to buy goods they couldn't
find elsewhere.
The focus group information enabled Selfridge's to make
careful changes to their layouts, displays and staff training.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
CUSTOMER SURVEYS
Customer surveys are best conducted by disinterested third
parties who can elicit unbiased opinions from customers
about your service. There are, however, both advantages
and disadvantages in this approach.
Pros:
1. people are only too willing to give their views to
someone who asks and is prepared to listen
2. simple surveys are inexpensive to design and run
3. surveys can be tailored to specific issues, eg a new
product, a change in decor.
Cons:
1. a fully representative survey of all customers is costly in
terms of time and money
2. not everyone tells the truth
3. surveys are only as good as the questions asked.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
WHAT THEY SAY
Many of the concerns customers have can be detected if
you simply listen to their unsolicited comments. It's often in
the tone they use.
These were comments overheard in the restaurant of a new
swimming pool...
"I expect things will get less crowded..."
"We were hoping there would be separate changing rooms
for men and women..."
"It doesn't really matter... but the water is rather cold for my
baby."
"We didn't realise you'd have to queue."
"I wasn't going to mention it but I found rubbish in my
cubicle."
"I'd no idea there would be communal showers. I'm not too
sure whether I like that..."

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
QUESTIONNAIRES
If you are providing a personal service and people have
some spare time, it is a good idea to give them a customer
questionnaire before they leave you. One supermarket uses
a "How did we do today?" form.
Questions about your survey can be used, for example...
1. at the end of a plane flight, a bus journey, a railway trip
2. at the end of a training course
3. at the end of a meal, a visit to a stately home, an
exhibition.
Some structure to the questions may be necessary if you ask
for more than "yes - no" answers.
Remember that while being nice is fine and reassuring to
you, only critical comments of how you can do better
actually help you to improve.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
FRONT-LINE STAFF
Your front-line staff are the most resourceful and reliable, as
well as the least costly, of your customer feedback sources.
Front-line staff should be encouraged to build strong
relationships with customers so that they feel free to share
how they feel about the service. It is then for front-line staff
to feed back important information for improving customer
care and for managers to make use of what they tell them.
There is also a value in looking after front-line staff. The
supermarket chain, Sainsbury's, discovered a direct
connection between customer satisfaction levels and front-
line staff satisfaction levels. Each year it carries out
customer surveys and staff surveys. Those stores where
customer satisfaction is high are invariably the same stores
where staff satisfaction is high.

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
HOW WE FARE...
The following comparison by Digital Equipment Company
shows how Japanese computer companies get more
customer feedback than their UK counterparts.
• 98% of Japanese managers go and visit their customers
against 91% in the UK
• 98% of Japanese companies analyse complaints whereas
only 86% of UK companies do
• 98% of Japanese companies use questionnaires; only
68% of UK firms do
• 99% of Japanese firms use observation and assessment
by independent professionals against only 64% in the UK
• 99% of Japanese companies use free-phones to the firm;
only 87% of UK firms do.
"You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others
to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."
(Winnie the Pooh)

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
WE DON'T DO ROOF REPAIRS
The following anecdote comes from Rod Knowles of the City
of Sheffield council...
A man walked into a McDonald's fast food restaurant and
asked if he could get the roof of his council house repaired
that week.
He was told quite courteously that they couldn't help him as
they sold hamburgers.
"I know that," the man replied. "But even so, the service
here is better than at the council. I only had to wait 30
seconds in one queue before being told I couldn't have what
I wanted. The place is clean, pleasant and friendly and you
seem genuinely sorry that you can't help me.
"I think I'll come back if I need any more council help."

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
THE GIFT OF INTELLIGENCE
John Wanamaker was renowned as the king of retail service.
One day while walking through his store in Philadelphia, he
noticed a customer waiting to be served. No one was paying
the least bit of attention to her.
Looking around, he saw his salespeople huddled together
laughing and talking among themselves. Without a word, he
quietly slipped behind the counter and waited on the
customer himself. Then he quietly handed the purchase to
the salespeople to be wrapped and went on his way.
Later, Wanamaker was quoted as saying: “I learned thirty
years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble
overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the
fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of
intelligence.”

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
IN THE CLUB
Here is an example of a service that manages to
give its customers what they want.
"I spend half my life in hotels, and to be honest
most of them get the basics right – well they
have to. One hotel that does stand out for me is
in Belfast. The basics are all there – the friendly
staff, the nice décor – but it feels like they make
just that little bit of extra effort. Maybe it’s the
plastic duck in the bathroom, which always gives
me a smile. They also publish a newsletter
covering the whole group of hotels and there is
a copy in your room. I like reading about their
staff changes and what famous guests they’ve
had – it sort of feels like I am ‘in the club’.
It’s not just the frills either. Once, there had
been a leak onto the bathroom carpet and when
I reported it they sent someone straight away.
The maintenance man who came and looked at
it immediately rang Reception, arranged for me
to change rooms, and offered to get a porter to
help move my stuff. In other hotels people just
come and do their own job, but this guy fixed
the whole situation for me. OK the leak caused
me a nuisance, but within 35 minutes of letting
them know there was a problem I was settled in
a new room – with very little hassle.
Now that’s what I want from a hotel. I always
recommend this hotel group to anyone going to
Belfast."

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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Customer Feedback
Customer Care
MTL Course Topics
THANK YOU
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn