Customer feedback has been around for centuries.  While the earliest recorded example of customer feedback was in 1750 BC on a clay tablet, with complaints about product quality (in this case, copper) and supply delays, things really started to take off in the 1980s, when customer satisfaction surveys became all the rage.  

In those pre-internet times, feedback was captured using a combination of paper-based surveys, face-to-face interviews and CATI (computer assisted telephone interviewing).  Due to the data collection methods, there were inevitably delays in receiving feedback.

With the rise of the internet, online surveys started to gain popularity in the 1990s and at the same time, the first CRM systems were released.

In the 2000s, online expanded to encompass mobile research and, by the middle of the decade, enterprise feedback management systems with near real-time reporting really hit their stride.  

Today, collecting (and, importantly, actioning) customer feedback has been widely embraced by businesses around the world. Providing great customer experience off the back of customer feedback helps drive loyalty, recommendation and - ultimately - revenue.  A recent survey by Gartner Inc. reported that nearly 80% of growth organizations use customer surveys to collect CX data, compared to just 58% of non-growth organizations.1  

While this is a step in the right direction, it is fast becoming apparent that customer surveys alone are not enough, as they only capture a small subset of customers and can’t provide the complete picture.  Unsolicited data is equally important and should be part of a holistic customer experience program.

Unsolicited data sources to consider include:  

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• Social media
• Review websites
• Operational Data
• Warranty claims
• Inbound calls
• Online chats

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The challenge, of course, is bringing all these different data sources together, so that you have a complete customer view.

One way to do this is to use a solution like Potentiate’s HX One, which can bring seemingly disparate data sources together and share them across your organization in an easily digestible manner.  HX One also has the added benefit of being able to merge data sources, so that you can see the impact of different metrics on one another, uncover correlations and get a deeper understanding of customer experience.

If you would like to know more about how we can help with customer experience, data consolidation and visualization through HX One, please feel free to contact us at hx@potentiate.com

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