Using customer feedback to offer better services

In the realm of providing excellent customer service and guaranteeing customer satisfaction, customer feedback is pure gold. This specifically applies to field service businesses as the survival of the service sector is dependent on the fulfillment of customers’ needs. In this article, we will be taking a look at the key factors that every business owner must consider, from applying customer feedback to creating better customer experiences. The tips that will be provided subsequently should be employed by owners, managers, customer service representatives, and any other key player in the division of customer satisfaction within a field service business.

The Benefits of Customer Feedback

First, we must take a look at why customer feedback is so important. Here is a shortlist of the benefits that field service businesses stand to gain from getting feedback from their customers.

1. Improvement in services: What feedback does for a field service business is let the business know exactly how it is faring. Is the customer satisfied? Do they feel that the service has been rendered as described? There is always room for improvement in any business, so where exactly does the service being rendered require improvement?

All these questions and more get answered when you obtain feedback from your customers. Applying the information that you gather from this feedback will help you to improve or build a better service and even upgrade it where possible.

2. Build trust and empathy: The easiest way to empathize with customers is through your response to the feedback that they give. First, you must understand the perspective that they are coming from through their feedback, and then proceed to communicate that understanding in your response. 

And as for trust, one of the easiest ways to build a customer’s trust besides rendering top-notch services is acting on any issues that they raise in the feedback that they give. Trust and empathy are two of the business building blocks to establishing customer loyalty.

3. Effective decision-making: With customer feedback, you can make more definite and effective decisions in your field service business. It also takes the complexity out of business decision-making. This is because you will know what exactly needs changing and have a better idea of how exactly to go about those changes.

4. It is free promotion! When your field service business has positive ratings, reviews, and feedback, it is one of the best marketing strategies for your business. Again, a customer will always trust a top-notch service. Therefore, what better way to prematurely establish that trust than by proving that your service is best in class through the help of your customer feedback!

How to Effectively Obtain Customer Feedback

Now that you know the benefits, it is time to consider the best manner in which your business can obtain feedback from your customers. There are 3 things that you must get right to effectively obtain customer feedback, and these are the message, the time, and the context.

Let’s begin with the right time. A useful rule of thumb is that your feedback requests should be sent shortly after a service or transaction has been completed. Waiting too long raises the risk of inaccurate feedback or getting zero feedback because the customer may not remember the experience or may ignore the request for feedback entirely.

The next thing to consider is the right context. There are different ways to request feedback from customers, but you must be able to decide which method would be best in a particular context. For example, a customer whose home you have just repaired may have the time and willingness to fill out a tangible customer card, but a customer at their office may be too busy for this. Conversely, you may still be able to obtain feedback from a busy office worker by attaching a quick survey to the receipt that you email to them.

Finally, the right message. Your feedback request must be quick and easy to respond to, something like: “Please rate our service on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is excellent and 1 is poor.” One-click or tick and you have your customer’s response.

In the part where you give your customer the chance to make an optional comment, you must give them room for honesty. The best way to provide this is through remote surveys and gently encouraging them to fill out the survey(s) at their convenience so that there is no pressure on them whatsoever. If you are requesting in-person feedback, you must reassure the customer that their honest feedback, whether positive or negative, is fully welcome (and mean it!).

Pro-tip: When you establish the right time, context, and message to receive feedback from your customers, you can then take things to the next level by creating a continuous feedback loop. Convince your recurring customers to join a feedback group or forum by letting them know how their feedback will better your ability to perfect their experience. This is a good way to always get the feedback that you need.

Quick Ways to Use Customer Feedback to Offer Better Services

Once you receive feedback from your customers, the next thing to do is to act fast by quickly and effectively incorporating your customers’ feedback into responses and decisions. Here are a few examples of quick ways to use customer feedback to offer better services.

1. Offer Quick Solutions: For instance, you receive a customer feedback email saying that they noticed a residual leak after a plumbing or roofing repair. You do not need to wait for a subsequent appointment to be scheduled. You can call the customer or reply to their email, offering up a quick fix to any problems notified in the customer’s feedback, then schedule an appointment to address the problem completely.

2. Track the Problem: If a customer reports an issue from a service that you rendered to them recently in their feedback, you can swiftly track where the problem may have occurred using a service log. The best way to obtain this log is by using a time and GPS tracking solution alongside the operations of your field technicians. This will enable you to easily track when, where, and how any problems arose in any project intending to find the best solutions to them. With Atto, besides seamless time and location tracking, field technicians can even add notes to their projects when recording their work.

3: Relay Improvements that are In-the-making to Customers: Keeping your customer in the know is one of the best ways to offer a better service. Let them know immediately that you are working on a solution to their problem, implementing changes they suggested, or upgrading an aspect of your service to improve their experience in the future. This will reassure your customers that you are listening to them and whatever they say indeed makes a difference.

4. Inform the Right Division to Act: All kinds of information can be obtained from customer feedback. Thus, it is important to promptly inform the right department or division of your field service business when there is a need for them to act on a particular customer or set of customers’ feedback.

Because customer feedback is so important to a business’ growth and brand image, business owners should always provide a safe and prejudice-free environment for customers to voice their concerns. Even if customers give stellar reviews for your services, they should still feel like they have a place or a person to direct their feedback to. Satisfied customers prove that your employees are doing a fantastic job, which in turn motivates them to continue doing their best. Make sure that asking for customer feedback (and incorporating it as well) is part of your regular business duties. 

Not so sure if you have the time? Then try Atto to track your working hours and help boost your productivity. You’ll know how you and your employees are spending time and where you can fit in planning for customer feedback.