Tuesday CX Thoughts (TCXT) is a section of our blog where our Director of QuestionPro Customer Experience reflects and shares his thoughts on everyday moments and their relationship to customer experience.
Want to hear Ken Peterson’s thoughts directly? Watch the video summary here:
During my recent leave, I had a comedic set of events happen at dinner one evening. While my son was on spring break, I decided to fly to Colorado to visit him. On my first day there, we enjoyed a hockey game and had the unique opportunity to sit just a few seats away from the starting quarterback for our hometown, Denver Broncos – Bo Nix. While enjoying the game, the lead singer of a band I listen to also came down to greet this local sports star – coincidentally enough, I have met him before also. That was the fun way the week started.
A few days later, my daughter joined us, flying in for her birthday – and she got to enjoy a birthday dinner with a couple friends she grew up with. The next day, we embarked on several adventures: visiting a gaming center and playing some air hockey, exploring Native American cliff dwellings, and visiting my hometown with our first ever visit to “Rita the Rock Planter” – a wood construction troll statue. /im
To wrap it up, we decided to have dinner at the kids’ favorite restaurant when they were growing up. It is a big chain restaurant, with nearly 450 locations nationwide – but strangely enough, none by the locations where my daughter and I reside. We were lucky enough to get there when it was not too busy. We each picked something a little different so we could enjoy a bite or two of each other’s dishes since we rarely get to enjoy this menu. As they brought the food to the table, we had a bit of a funny thing happen. The first two dishes were handed to our table without incident.
The third dish, a pile of noodles, suddenly slipped off the serving tray and tumbled down my son’s back. It would have only been topped if the bowl had landed on his head like a hat. With noodles everywhere, the server was apologetic as all three of us laughed at the circumstances (probably confusing the server even further). No clothes were stained – the hockey jersey my son was wearing would clean easily, and he had an undershirt so he could remove the noodle-covered outer layer. Still, we had apologies from the server and the assistant manager several times even though we regaled them with stories of amusing mishaps that had occurred at other locations.
Later that night, I received an email asking me to take a survey about my experience. I thought it was one more opportunity to assure the team that we still enjoyed our visit to their location and provided feedback. The ratings were overall positive, but I did make mention of the flying-noodle incident. Following the feedback, I noted two things:
The first, despite providing a long story about the incident, no one from the location or higher up thought it was important enough to contact me, even though I conceded that I would like to be contacted and provided my contact information. This tells me that they are only aiming for a score, not really reviewing the feedback. Perhaps they only concern themselves with negative feedback and ignore the surveys with higher ratings. I do this on occasion intentionally, because I like to see if my feedback is being heard, or if it just goes into a scorecard.
There are missed opportunities if you do not read the positive feedback. What if the customer provides a great idea that could improve the business further? What if they noticed something that could be improved despite the positive rating? What if they give you the next innovative idea? This is why we encourage front-line teams to review all the comments. Our AskWhy question type allows customers to look at other customers’ ideas and vote them up if they feel it is relevant – sort of like having another set (or sets) of eyes looking at the comments and voting on them.
The second thing I noticed was the incentive offered to complete the survey. The incentive was not my reason for taking the survey, but I noticed the offer of a “Free Crispy” (what most of us know as “Rice Krispy Treats”) for completing the survey within seven days. There were no other stipulations mentioned in the email invitation. Yet, when I received the redemption email, there were quite a few more restrictions listed. First, you had to spend at least ten dollars with the redemption. Second, the reward is valid for only thirty days after receiving the reward code. That would not be so difficult to understand except the third condition was that the reward was valid in only NINE restaurant locations (if you are wondering, that represents 2% of their locations). The final restriction was that the offer only applied to a take-out order done through their mobile application. With all these restrictions, I wonder how many of these redemptions actually take place.
Clearly, I never had a chance to redeem as I do not live near the location I visited – yet it was the closest “select” available location to my home, even if it is a three-hour flight to get there. However, to then require a take-out order for redeem when my original experience (and preferred experience) is the dine-in experience (who knows what will happen next). This really does not align with the customer, both in terms of recognizing feedback and then not matching their preferences.
The latter is also a reason we offer CX Workflow. The idea behind that is we can get the right survey, to the right customer at the right time – matching the customers’ preferences. Want the survey via email? Done. Want it delivered via SMS? Done. Want a personalized incentive to go to the customer? Done.
Experience—and the survey experience—should match what the customer demands, not the company’s convenience. Even if that means “swapping” some credits between regions for customer survey incentives, I’ll probably go back to one of their locations in the future, but my desire to complete their survey will be minimized—unless we end up with a bowl of pasta on one of our heads again.
Measure the experience you are delivering to your customers
Understanding customer satisfaction levels and their perception is essential to evaluate the impact of our efforts across every aspect of our business. Our main goal remains the same: providing a great experience.
If you’re also interested in gaining deeper insights into your customer base, QuestionPro Customer Experience offers the necessary tools to help you achieve this. Schedule a demo now—we’ll be happy to guide you through the platform and learn about the challenges in reaching your goals.
