Your Customers Think You Are Deaf

For several decades, the only way for large-sized companies to hear from customers was through voice of customer (VoC) surveys.

Recent widely adapted logic believes a company must place the customer in the center of an organization to succeed in today’s market. Surveys, for some years now, have been heralded as “the most” customer-centric channel for those customers to communicate with organizations.

Now, 20-plus years after VoC programs began, there is very little customer-centricity in most surveys.

Survey Fatigue is a Real Thing…and it’s Disrespectful

Sources claim American consumers receive 40 billion+ survey requests yearly. Via email, mailbox, and even phone, customers are constantly bombarded. In addition to overuse, surveys are long, uninteresting and outdated. With that, it should be no surprise that response rates are acutely low — dropping by the day — while consumer complaints are rising.

Every second your customers give you is a gift. That gift must be used as wisely and expertly as possible. It is our obligation to be respectful of our customers’ time and extract the most valuable data, in the least amount of time.

35-minute-long questionnaires are not respectful. Asking respondents to answer identifier questions (that are already in your CRM) is not respectful; asking customers the same questions over and over again without ever giving them a chance to speak about what truly matters to them is not respectful.

Insight That Lacks Value

Despite harassing customers for feedback and spending countless dollars compensating respondents for time and effort, companies actually extract very little actionable data from survey responses. This is bothersome, to say the least.

In the world we live, where companies across industries and continents are simultaneously competing for mere seconds of customer attention, how careless is it to waste precious moments gathering insight that has little or no true value?

At This Point, Your Customers Think You Are Deaf

News flash, your customers don’t want to answer your surveys anymore. You should have heard them the first time or given them the opportunity to talk about what matters to THEM and not to YOU. That is how to be truly customer centric.

It’s high time we customer experience and research professionals take a step back from our own agenda and allow customers to dialogue with us, as opposed to constantly pushing a one-way interrogation where only the company benefits.

So, what can you offer your customers in return? How can they benefit from voice of customer programs?

Learn more about my opinion on setting CX priorities on the Voices of CX Blog.