What does the future hold for satisfaction surveys?

Until very recently, customer feedback was internal company data, collected anonymously or by name as part of various surveys. This data was not made public, or only in a very controlled way (e.g. in the form of customer testimonials).

Since the advent of Internet 2.0, customer feedback has proliferated on the web in all its forms: comments, scores on the quality of the product purchased, on delivery times, on the services of a particular company...

Each customer is now potentially a content creator, a media outlet in his or her own right, read by hundreds or even thousands of other Internet users.

Where can I find customer reviews?

This feedback, commonly referred to as "customer reviews", can be found scattered across :

Company websites

Fram, Darty, Direct Assurance ... reviews can be managed internally or via players such as Reevoo or Bazaarvoice.

Specialized collection sites

- Generalists
Ekomi, Fia-Net, TrustPilot, Avis Certifiés, Avis vérifiés ...

- The specialists
Tourism - Travel : TripAdvisor, Zoover, Holidaycheck, ...
Car repairs: Allogarage
Insurance : Assurland, Le Lynx

Social networks
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Foursquare...

Ask customers for their opinion

In your opinion, what type of customer feels sufficiently motivated by their purchase or vacation to return to the website of the company that sold their services, or to a review site, create an account and post a comment?

If you don't take a proactive approach to listening to your customers, the comments of the dissatisfied will dominate the others. The majority of satisfied customers aren't sufficiently motivated or don't take the time to give their opinion on the Internet.

Furthermore, companies that don't ask their customers for their opinion are faced with a complex situation: they have to analyze unstructured customer feedback, scattered across the web on comparison sites, content sites, blogs, facebook, twitter...

Even if tools exist to analyze "e-reputation", the limits of analysis are numerous: little or no comparable score, problem of data representativeness, difficulty in associating a comment with a precise experience, no information qualifying the comment sender, understanding of comments in foreign languages limited to an analysis of keywords...

The goldmine of customer reviews

Numerous studies show the power of customer reviews on purchasing decisions.

To quote the results of a global Nielsen survey conducted in 2012: "Consumers trust peer reviews 12 times more than traditional advertising".

In the case of notices posted directly on the company's website, the expected gains are as follows:

• Improved natural site referencing (SEO) through frequency and volume of content, "User Generated Content".
• Increase in conversion rate
• Increase in average basket
• Increased time spent on site
• Facilitate exchanges between customers with a view to animating communities

If the company chooses a partner site specialized in collecting reviews, the objectives are to improve paid referencing (Google Adwords program) and use a trusted third party to give greater credibility to customer reviews.

In the world of tourism, a partnership to collect reviews with a global reference site like TripAdvisor is clearly aimed at achieving greater visibility on the site and therefore a source of traffic generation on a tourist establishment's website.

In addition to the commercial benefits, the organized collection of reviews makes it easier to channel customer feedback, which in turn makes it easier to analyze and respond to. Responding to a review is in fact a fantastic opportunity to provide answers, apologies... to show that the company is listening and proactive in responding to customers.

Facilitating the feedback of all online customers is not a natural decision for any company, since you have to be prepared to report cases of dissatisfaction. A study by Reevoo shows that 68% of customers have greater confidence in feedback when it includes both good and bad comments.

It's worth remembering that online customer feedback is generally positive: TripAdvisor reveals that the average rating on its site is around 4.08/5.

Last but not least, a company that displays its customers' opinions shows total transparency with regard to its products and services, and can win their trust over the long term.

Should it always be easy to post customer reviews online?

We do not recommend it in the following cases:

• No continuous improvement process in place within the company and/or no desire to differentiate itself from competitors through the quality of its services and products: the volume of negative reviews is potentially too high.
• No internal system in place to manage moderation, deal with customers who leave a negative review, and no process to capitalize on feedback.

Companies must do more than just post customer reviews online

Review sites or the posting of reviews on the company's website do not replace post-experience satisfaction surveys, for the following 2 reasons:

For the wealth of content collected

An effective questionnaire sent out following a customer experience enables you to ask questions that are relevant to the company, and to adapt these questions to the experience. Review sites often offer very, or even too succinct questionnaires, with no scope for personalization.

For better data analysis

Online survey management solutions allow you to monitor results in real time and perform advanced analyses, including cross-referencing with customer data. Online review sites offer review interfaces that lack analysis and collaborative sharing functions.

The rating scale on review sites is generally out of 5, which certainly has the advantage of standardizing the score scale for Internet users, but does not provide the analytical finesse of a rating out of 10. A rating out of 10 has the advantage of highlighting changes more clearly and measuring the returns on actions and investments in service improvement more accurately.

Online reviews and satisfaction surveys represent different... and complementary challenges

Customer surveys are designed to identify areas for improvement, and to implement a policy of continuous improvement in the products and services offered to customers. The aim is to implement an internal policy within the organization.

For most of the companies we meet, the primary aim of online customer reviews is to achieve commercial objectives, and the secondary aim is to centralize customer feedback on the web.

It's a good idea to set up customer satisfaction measurement tools first, before working to make it easier for your customers to express themselves online.

Customer feedback is useful to organizations for internal use and also in the form of opinions posted on the Internet... How can we reconcile the two?

Between the temptation to solicit customers twice (with a standard survey and a review-type survey) and the mistake of not soliciting them at all, there's an interesting alternative: ask them for their opinion just once.

This involves sending out a single questionnaire (by email), divided into 2 parts: an Internet feedback section and a public "share your opinion on the Internet" section.

This approach has 3 advantages:

• Avoid over-soliciting customers, so as not to lower survey participation rates over time.
• Collect feedback only from real customers, thus meeting one of the requirements of AFNOR standard NF Z 74-501.
• Reduce collection costs

While the general tone of feedback remains the same, customers do not express themselves in the same way when addressing a company or public spaces on the Internet. It's instructive to analyze the differences. In fact, it could make a good subject for an article in this blog.

Conclusion

It's not possible to build a customer strategy solely on the analysis of the most virulent customer comments on social networks, even with an effective one-to-one customer response system.

"E-reputation" is first and foremost a matter of reputation, which is earned through a shared commitment by the entire organization to deliver the best customer experience over the long term.

It's essential to effectively analyze representative customer feedback via well-designed satisfaction surveys, monitor key indicators and take corrective action where necessary, before implementing a strategy to disseminate customer reviews on the Internet. Satisfaction rates will rise, and this will have a positive and measurable effect on online customer reviews.

SatisFactory's solutions to these problems

Solution for sending a single questionnaire by e-mail, presented in 2 parts:

• Personalized customer experience questions for in-house use
• Questions (score + comment), non-mandatory, if the customer wishes to share their experience publicly on the Internet

To distribute customer feedback on the Internet, we offer 3 possible solutions for distributing feedback collected in the form of reviews:

• Directly on your site
• Moderation with our Sharing-Data solution
• On review collection sites: we have recently set up partnerships with 3 leading players in this field: TripAdvisor, Zoover and Ekomi.