Feedback, Whats the point

James Stuart

Feedback, what's the point?

As a customer success professional I believe how we handle feedback is crucial to success. Over the next few weeks I will be discussing different topics relating to feedback

For me actioning feedback is everyone's responsibility but I believe CS should act a facilitator ensuring it gets passed to the relevant department. They should be the link between the colleague who received the feedback (regardless of the source) and the department responsible actioning the feedback. For me this is key for a couple of reasons

· Able to identify trends across the company
· Ensure feedback is actioned and logged correctly
· May be able to apply the outcome to other problems their customers are facing

I understand the above is not always possible depending on the size of the CS team within that company but I believe it is something companies should strive for.

I would love to hear other people's thoughts

Anita Toth

Interesting question -- The point of feedback is to guide direction and action. 

Feedback as a topic is very broad, ranging from how it's collected to the value of it (not all feedback data is equal) to making decisions and taking action on the feedback.

@James Stuart you mention you'll be discussing different topics around feedback.

Can you share what some of the these topics might be?

Kevin Mitchell Leonor

One thing that is helpful is to give the feedback some weight and also be mindful of avoiding a firing squad.

If I said, my customers said our guides are outdated, enablement may get defensive and has been defensive. Nobody wants to be told they are falling behind the customer expectations. 

But this is why I love the customer success approach because it remains customer-centric. Focusing on the needs of the customer as opposed to the criticisms of the customer is a more productive conversation. Instead of saying the guides are outdated, I say that the customers are requesting to have the screenshots reflect the new version of the app. It's now task based and not criticism based. 

This is important when we do relay feedback.

James Stuart

Hi @Anita Toth

Thank you for your response.

You are correct. Feedback is broad. That is why I like to break it down topically.

The remaining topics are

• The feedback loop
• How as an organisation can we deal with feedback better?
• Feedback metrics

I will be sharing these soon and would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks
James

James Stuart

Love this @Kevin Mitchell Leonor.

You are right. Feeding back externally and internally drives improvement and change in a positive change. It also drives learnings which is key to success. 

Thanks
James

Anita Toth

Can't wait to get into those discussions @James Stuart. ? ?