Collecting customer feedback still requires objectivity

We read this week that the electronics retail giant Best Buy has started using store staff to collect feedback from customers while they shop. The firm’s Voices of Consumers through Employees system has employees logging real-time customer feedback products, services, policies, store layouts and displays onto an intranet system.

The report we read said that Best Buy’s customer insights team will then analyse the information and generate “actionable consumer insight” from the data.

Using staff to monitor customer reaction has its attractions and could certainly be cost effective – but we worry how accurate and independent the data garnered can actually be if it is front line sales staff that are providing the information. After all, isn’t it in the interests of customer-facing staff to be overwhelmingly positive?

For us if negative comments are noted down and input by the staff, the potential for 'bias' would be a worry. Better perhaps if it is via some kind of electronic device which allows customers to privately score their views rather than declare that they give service 2 out of 10.

Companies looking for instant feedback in order to improve their service are, of course, to be applauded. The issue is method. Superdrug is one of the companies that puts a code on its receipts, which the customer can use to log on to an online survey, whilst Co-op collects feedback direct from customers in store using Chip & Pin machines at the tills. One wonders how many actually do. Then there is always the more traditional shopper route with interviewers in-store to collect views on the spot….though this does add cost. Perhaps this is the time for mobile – a simple mobile survey suitably incentivised on future purchases.

Moreover, the data accumulated then has to be interpreted and used to inform business planning. One of the biggest advantages of using an agency is its objectivity. Not only does the agency manage the data collection in a manner which keeps it free from even well-intended tampering, it can use its inherent objectivity to interpret the data is a manner that is free from existing ‘brand baggage’.