By Michael Cordeiro, Technical Writer at Alchemer

Time and tide wait for no one, but what about your data? When does it become valuable and actionable when making decisions?

Really, it’s the moment it is collected, but how do we turn that value into operational gold?

As stakeholders ramp up their data collection, it’s important to put that information to work rapidly, and with a heavy-hitting list of integrations for Alchemer, it’s as simple as ever!

With a focus on the Slack integration, we’ll unpack and deploy a solution to keep internal stakeholders in the know with how respondents are answering projects, so they can take action to affect their experience. In our examples to follow, we’ll gear our focus to integrating a Net Promoter Score® into Slack, so that internal stakeholders can see the current feelings on the Alchemer platform.

The Building Blocks

This survey is used to track the user experience for the Alchemer platform. To start this workflow, create a new survey, adding the Net Promoter® Question Type on the build tab. The project is titled, NPS® Alchemer Customer Experience”

The NPS question is set to be required, as well as including left and right labels to identify the scaling for the question. On the Layout tab when editing the question, we added the ability to leave comments as well because it’s important to capture feedback from the customer in their own words to help understand their score selection.

Once the question type is created, we’ll create the connection between your Slack environment and the Alchemer platform. To do this, navigate to Integrations > Data Connectors from the left-hand navigation menu:

Scroll down to the Collaborator Level Integrations, and select Configure to the far right of Slack:

You’ll be prompted to title the integration. Here we use a basic title of, “NPS® Alchemer Experience Slack integration,” to easily identify the use here. Once the title is saved, one is redirected to slack to sign into the workplace where that data will be sent. Input your workspace URL which is unique to your organization, then click Continue:

Sign in to your Slack Account, while also allowing access as seen below:

Once selected, you’ll be brought back to the Alchemer integrations screen, showing a successful integration within Alchemer:

Fast Data, Swift Messaging

When the above steps are complete, we now start sending data from Alchemer into Slack, instantly looping in members of an organization with the responses received. 

Navigate to the previously created survey and add a slack action to the survey build. In our example, we see the NPS® question is on its own page, and immediately following is a page with the Slack action itself:

NOTE: make sure your Slack Action exists on a separate page after the last question one would like to send to Slack.

Edit the action, giving it a title that represents its function. Next, select the integration we have created and apply which channel or user it is being sent to:

Regarding messaging, we want to pass along both the score a respondent provided, as well as the comments around it. To set this up, Select merge code below the text box:

Click the NPS® question, then select Question Answer, which displays what a respondent selected within the Slack message one will receive:

Next, provide a comments subheader, and select the option at the bottom with the comment’s language and save the action:

Finally, edit the page using the edit pencil in the top right. Navigate to the Logic Tab, and select Automatically submit the page, running all actions and custom scripts. This will automatically process the Slack action page, providing a better respondent experience:

Users can add multiple Slack Actions where Logic drives what channels or members of an organization that information is routed to within Slack.

To do this, edit the action and navigate to the Logic tab. Only show this action based on a previous answer and define the answer options that fit the conditions needed. In this example, our action will display and fire for respondents who provided promoter defined answers as seen below:

Depending on your internal stakeholders, change where the messaging is routed to via the Channel or User text box in the primary setup tab.

Let’s Take Action

The building is complete! We’ll run a test response to ensure that the response and all the messaging is sent over to Slack.

In a successful build, we see the following when a response to the survey is complete within the designated slack channel:

We successfully sent the score for Net Promoter® as well as the comment behind the score! Additionally, email addresses, names, emails, phone numbers, and many more fields and question types can be sent to Slack, so internal stakeholders can swiftly close the loop for that response.

Understand, Interact, and Iterate with your Respondents

Data analysis and collection accelerates, as well as enables, many areas of an organization. Collecting the important snippets of information from your audience can be the make-or-break moment in retaining a customer and their loyalty, as well as fully understanding and living their journey. With effective and swift integrations like Slack and Alchemer, stakeholders can best understand several key points of concern and praise, and rapidly act on them!

For more information on the Slack Integration, check out our help documentation here.

The post Time Does Not Wait and Neither Should Data appeared first on Alchemer.

In August, we asked our readers about their current pets, pets they would love to own, and fantasy pets. We were a little surprised by the results, to be honest.

We honestly expected Cats to come in a little higher on the list, given their low maintenance. But the dog lovers in our office approve of this answer.

Dogs won again. We were a little surprised that more people didn’t want ponies, although alpacas and llamas might have stolen market share here.

Our guess here is that a fair amount of people watched cartoons before answering this question. Bear was the big winner, with Otter, Giraffe, Panda, and Falcon rounding out the top five. We’re a little worried that so many people wanted velociraptors, but impressed with the number of people who preferred capybaras.

Given that Halloween is just a month away, let’s find out what kind of candy you like. We hope you’ll take our survey here: https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/6535189/Favorite-Sweets. This survey was built using Cascading Menus in Alchemer.

To run your own survey, click here to start a free trial!

The post Our Secret Life with Pets appeared first on Alchemer.

In August we ran a survey of our customer base to get to know who is using Alchemer and for what. Below you’ll find how people use Alchemer, how long people stay with Alchemer/SurveyGizmo, what steps people took to acquire Alchemer, and what are the most important deciding factors in selecting a survey platform. You can also see what pizza toppings and ice-cream flavors our audience prefers.

Some of the results we predicted (pepperoni pizza is the most popular), some just make sense (question types is the highest-ranked feature), and some we didn’t expect (mint chocolate chip ice cream just barely lost to chocolate).

All of the charts were automatically generated using the Alchemer reporting features.

How People Use Alchemer

Most of the customers we surveyed use Alchemer for Market Research and Customer Feedback.

People also use Alchemer for Human Resources (HR) functions, such as Employee Satisfaction, Feedback, and Employee Assessments and Reviews. One of the nice things about the Alchemer platform is that you can use Alchemer to perform HR functions as well as collect market and customer feedback.

Length of Stay

When we asked people how long they have been Alchemer/SurveyGizmo customers, more than half have been with us for more than three years.

Deciding Factors

We asked people to sort-rank a list of features (and we apologize for making it such a long list), and not surprisingly, Question Types came out on top. Alchemer Collaborator (our entry-level product) has more question types (25) than any of the major players. Alchemer Professional offers 29 question types, and Alchemer Full Access features 43 – almost double our closest competitor.

What Steps You Took

Most people started using Alchemer via the free trial. A lot of people also started a free account before moving to a subscription, and almost as many people talked to a salesperson first. Surprisingly, only 18% inherited Alchemer/SurveyGizmo.

Favorite Flavors

When we asked people for their favorite pizza toppings, we expected pepperoni and cheese to compete, but veggies and prosciutto (ham) beat out cheese for second and third behind pepperoni (although, if you combine cheese and extra cheese, that would sneak into second place at 16.8%.

When it came to ice cream, the big winner was Other. Mint Chocolate Chip just lost out to Chocolate by ½ of a percent, with Vanilla coming third.

In the “Other” category, Caramel, Coffee, and Butter Cream were the standouts.

Thank You

Thank you again to everybody who participated in our summer survey. Your feedback on products, sources of information, and uses really helps us know our market better. It also helps us realize where we should be focusing our efforts in the future.

The post Getting to Know You appeared first on Alchemer.

Watch the webinar here.   

Trend 1: Customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines  

Organizations will move to a more centralized customer experience (CX) yet expand CX to every department as customers touch more parts of the business. Customer experience will be powered by leaders on the front lines, as they are the people who can close the loop with the customer. This helps people feel that they are heard and encourages them to participate in your Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs.  

Trend 2:  Digital transformation efforts will accelerate dramatically. In many instances, customers will no longer engage with a company face–to–face  

During the pandemic, customers lost immediate face-to-face interaction, such as going to the mall to shop or flying to meet a business-to-business customer. Now companies must create (and recreate) that trust and intimacy without the face-to-face experience. More and more, your website will become the storefront for your business. Companies that are thriving today are those that have successfully embraced digital transformation to do business digitally, even though the experience is different.   

Trend 3: The sophistication of CX will skyrocket    

As a result of the pandemic, there will be a new wave of automation at the customer level that will eliminate background activities and give more time to customer-facing teams to engage directly with their customers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will help automate background activities, so that people can focus on customers. To be successful, organizations will need to apply higher-level skillsets to better engage customers and building hyper-personalized experiences.  

Trend 4:  Some companies will over-rotate toward automation  

In the rush to embrace digital transformation, it’s easy to go too far. Automating background activities is a good thing to do as it frees up people to spend more time with customers. It’s not easy and possible to automate too many customer-facing interactions. Companies will need to guard against further separating themselves from the few remaining personal interactions that they have with their customers. Successful companies will use automation to allow for more personal customer engagements, not to replace them.   

Trend 5:  Employee experience will be just as critical as customer experience  

It’s easy to be isolated and transactional with everybody working remotely. Being able to engage your employees in the same ways you engage your customers will help you retain your best people and maintain your corporate culture. Keeping a pulse on your employees allows you keep your employees engaged and passionate about their work and company. As we all adjust to whatever new norms the next six months bring, successful companies will work to keep their employee engagement and passion high, which will help their customers enjoy more of their experiences with your company.  

Hear more from David and Ryan  

While this blog has covered the top trends we see shaping CX in 2021, the webinar offers even more, including more than ten minutes of questions and answers with Alchemer CEO, David Roberts, and Alchemer VP of Customer Success, Ryan Tamminga. To watch the webinar, click here and sign in. You will also find other webinars about NPS, Employee Experience, and Risk Assessments.  

The post What to Expect in Customer Experience appeared first on Alchemer.

Vanessa Bagnato, Director of Enterprise Solutions for Alchemer, attended the virtual conference, so we talked to her about the experience. 

Alchemer: What were your biggest takeaways from the conference?

Vanessa: I think the biggest takeaway for me was how proud I am of our customer-centric culture. I got a chance to review the other finalists’ programs and submissions, and we definitely deserved to be a finalist. The Support Heroes at Alchemer have led the way in putting customers at the center of what we do. Company-wide, we focus on solving real customer challenges, and most of those come from the conversations our sales and support people have with customers every day. 

Alchemer: What did you feel was missing from the conference? 

Vanessa: There were a lot of great examples of successful customer-centric cultures and why companies should strive to be customer-centric, but not a lot of help for people wanting to get there. Many attendees seemed to ask questions such as, “How do you handle large amounts of customer feedback?” or, “How do you really close the loop with customers?” Nobody really talked about the processes and steps to becoming customer-centric.  

The conference did a great job of getting people excited about becoming customer-centric. It also left us with an opportunity to explain how you can turn a Voice-of the Customer (VoC) program into becoming a customer-centric company. 

Alchemer: Isn’t having a Voice-of-the-Customer program the same as having a customer-centric culture? 

Vanessa: That is one of the beliefs that many attendees had at first. But as the conference went on, those people quickly realized that VoC was just one piece of the puzzle and that one program doesn’t solely make a business customer-centric. 

Alchemer: What are the other pieces? 

Vanessa: It’s a culture-shift, for starters. Becoming customer-centric is going to require executive sponsorship to work across functions. We looked at how we built a customer-centric culture at Alchemer, and then talked to others who are leaders in the category. All of these companies, including all of the finalists in this category, shared five common elements, that we believe make customer-centricity a reality. 

1. Executive sponsorship and demonstration 
2. An active VoC or Customer Experience (CX) program 
3. Intelligent feedback routing and automation 
4. Enterprise-wide visibility into the feedback from customers
5. Customer-driven decision making 

Alchemer: Can you give a brief overview of what you mean by Executive sponsorship and demonstration? 

Vanessa: A change as core to the business as moving to a customer-centric culture, will need executive sponsorship because the nature of becoming customer-centric involves more than one department. The executive team needs to believe in the importance of collecting customer feedback, and they must demonstrate their belief in the system if you’re to get any traction extending it throughout the organization. 

Alchemer: You’re saying an active VoC or CX solution is a building block to customer centricity? 

Vanessa: Yes, you need to start with a means of collecting customer feedback. Once you have executive sponsorship, they’ll want to start capturing the voices of your customers. The organization will put a program in place, assign ownership, and set metrics. The challenge is then putting that feedback into motion so that your customers feel that your company is making decisions based on things they say. Only then can you route that feedback automatically to the people who can act on it. 

Alchemer: What do you mean by intelligent feedback routing and automation? 

Vanessa: Collecting feedback is very important, but what you do with it at that point determines the depth of how customer-centric your company truly is. Putting that feedback into the hands of the right person to take action on it is key. A low NPS or CSAT score can be remedied within minutes if somebody is notified and reaches out to the customer. This takes a certain degree of automation and routing. Intelligently automating your feedback system to automatically notify a customer service or sales rep when feedback is received, allows your team to deal with customers individually quickly. It also gives time back to your team because nobody is tasked with taking that information and determining who to send it to. 

In turn, when the product is updated using that input, the feedback comes back around, and a sales rep or customer service rep can reach out to the customer to thank them for their help and show how the problem has been fixed. This restores the trust of the customer that they will be heard. 

Alchemer: And this is how you create enterprise-wide visibility into the feedback from customers? 

Vanessa: Exactly. When feedback is automatically routed throughout the organization, everybody can see what customers like, don’t like, and don’t care about. While a customer support person might deal with the initial feedback, if a product bug or problem is found, that can be routed, automatically, to engineering or development, along with the customer’s exact words. At Alchemer, this means that every employee can read every piece of feedback, unfiltered by subscribing to a Slack channel.  

Alchemer: Does this make the end-goal to show that your company customer-driven decision making? 

Vanessa: Showing isn’t really enough. To become a customer-centric company means that you bring customer feedback into all meetings and uses that feedback to drive key decisions across all departments – from product, to marketing, to sales. This leads to larger changes in the customer experience, while still having addressed their individual feedback. Studies show that even B2B customers are expecting an Amazon-like buying experience, regardless of what they’re buying. The only way to build that effectively for your market is to learn what customers want and need, and then deliver on it. In other words, make decisions based on what your customers tell you.  

That’s what customer centricity is all about. 

The post As a Finalist at the Customer Centricity Awards, Alchemer Shares CX Trends appeared first on Alchemer.

The team that conceived of and created the first version of the Alchemer Activated VoC (Voice of the Customer) Solution did so for one reason: to better serve their customers. However, the team’s commitment to customer service doesn’t begin and end with the Activated VoC Solution, rather it’s the solution that allows them to treat customers individually. 

“How we support our customers is at the heart of our company values,” said Celeste Vaughn Gonder, Senior Manager of Customer Support. “Everybody we hire as a Support Hero has to embody three core values to even get through the process. They must have a heart for service, they need to be curious, and they must be unrelenting in finding a way to solve whatever challenge they face.” 

“We build partnerships with our customers and build relationships beyond the typical customer-company relationship,” added Celeste. “We truly care about each person, what they say and think, as well as what they care about that day.”  

Surprising and Delighting Customers 

“Most people who leave a passive or detractor score and comment feel like nothing is going to happen,” said Taylor “Topper” Shull, Support Team Lead. “So, when they hear back from us, it’s a brand-new interaction for them. It’s a positive interaction for them, and often they tell other people about it because it’s so rare.” 

“It solves the problem and helps them move forward and do something with Alchemer that they weren’t expecting to be able to do,” added Tawnee Torres, Support Team Lead. “On an NPS reply we’ll hear, ‘I didn’t expect anyone to even read this, let alone reply or provide a solution.’” 

“And promoters get as much attention from us as detractors,” added Celeste. “You shouldn’t have to give us a low score to be heard.” 

Activated VoC Makes It Possible 

The Activated VoC Solution allows the team to take action on individual feedback to ensure every piece of customer feedback is heard. The Solution, powered by the Alchemer Platform, creates a customer support case for each Net Promoter Score (NPS) and customer comment. It does this through an out-of-the-box integration with the service-management system. The team responds to each customer, as though they had emailed in a question. Only after closing the loop with each customer is the feedback aggregated into reports to understand trends. 

On top of each NPS response creating a customer support case, each Support Hero gets an immediate alert on feedback through our enterprise messaging tool, Slack. “Our Support Heroes know, right in the moment, if a customer needs assistance so they can go take action on it,” added Topper. This integration accelerates the Heroes’ ability to respond to customers in real-time. 

Setting High Standards 

In addition to a company-wide Net Promoter Score, the Alchemer Support Team also has their own score, which is currently above 90. “All support teams should be doing this,” said Celeste.  

The Team holds itself to specific metrics.  

• Emails should be answered within 5 hours 
• Phone calls should be answered within 3 minutes 
• The Support Team’s weekly NPS should be above 80 

The reason the team measures each Support Hero’s individual NPS score is to know where help might be needed. “We are really focused on the quality of our interactions,” said Celeste. “If one of our metrics falls below our standards, we know where to focus our attention.”

“We validate the customer and their experience,” added Tawnee. “Whether they are a passive, detractor, or promoter, we reach out to them.” The team views anybody who reports less than a 9 or 10 as a detractor and consequently works hard to help each customer get what they need.  

“We care about each person’s feedback, rather than looking at it only in aggregate,” added Celeste. “Because our Support Heroes can really pay attention to a single piece of feedback and truly help that customer, it changes the way they interact with customers and how they feel about their role here.” 

Since each individual score adds to the cumulative score, this approach is working.  

Celebrating Customer Centricity 

The Alchemer Support Team is extremely collaborative and supportive, which comes from the Servant-Leadership approach exhibited by the team leads all the way up to executive management. Managers and leads know each Support Hero personally and know how to make them feel acknowledged and appreciated. “Generally, we celebrate our successes by coming together. And food!” said Celeste.  

“We also have two internal awards on the Support Team – Superhero of the Quarter and Honorary Support Hero Award,” added Topper. “These are voted on by the Support Team, and the winners receive a cape and a plaque, as well as being recognized in front of the whole company while we read off the comments people share about the winner.” 

Making It Easier to Provide Excellent Service 

The reason the team developed the first version of the Activated VoC Solution was to make it easier for the Support Heroes to take care of customers. Taking advantage of the automation capabilities within the Alchemer solution enables the team to take personal action with a customer. “We automate behind the scenes so that we can give quick, personalized attention to the customer’s feedback,” said Celeste. “We let the systems do the work so that we can spend time taking care of our customers.”

Learn more about the Activated VoC Solution for small, midsized, and enterprise teams. 

Net Promoter^®, NPS^®, NPS Prism^®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ and Net Promoter System℠ are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

The post How Alchemer Customer Support Brings Customer Centricity to Life appeared first on Alchemer.

Many companies ask for customers’ feedback, and they’ll spend a lot of resources on gathering data and opinions. But the outcome is not always what they expect.

If organized correctly, a feedback loop can be beneficial for both customers and the company. By responding, you show your customers that your company really cares about their feedback about your products and services, and what you can do better. This shows customers that the company is interested in listening to them and cares about them. Next, the customer feedback loop is a powerful tool for companies to understand how and why people use what they sell, and what their preferences are.

What is the Customer Feedback Loop?

The Customer Feedback Loop is defined as the process of ongoing improvement of products or business based on the customers’ insights.

Essentially, it is not only useful in developing products further, but as a tool in gaining customer loyalty and ensuring they feel valued and appreciated.

“It should be a constant cycle of mutual interaction, wherein the customers and company communicate about what can be done better, which is then implemented. The customers experience the changes, and then provide more feedback, and the cycle repeats,” says Carole Peterson, a customer service specialist at Writinity and LastMinuteWriting.

Steps in the Customer Feedback Loop

Step 1: Ask for Feedback

This one’s a no-brainer – the first step in the customer feedback loop is to ask for feedback! You can do this in many ways, but it is important to use one centralized mechanism to keep all the responses in one database. Data collection and storage methods are important for being able to analyses the organized data.

You can, for example, ask for feedback via product reviews, satisfaction surveys, live chats, social media, NPS (Net Promoter Scores) and Open Feedback forms. You can send these via email, or place Facebook widgets or widgets on your website. Try to gather data from as many different customer segments as possible, so utilize more than one feedback gathering technique – younger generations will be online, but older clients might prefer traditional paper forms and phone calls!

Step 2: Collect Feedback

You can collect all of your responses on a centralized mechanism like Alchemer or UseResponse. On hubs like this, you can collect emails, tickets, chat conversations and social media comments. This way it’s all organized in one place.

Step 3: Respond to Individuals

People want to feel heard, so consider using a feature like Alchemer’s Send Email function to automatically create support tickets or notices for salespeople to follow up with their customers.

Step 4: Aggregate and Centralize Customer Feedback

Data analysis can be the make or break of a company: do it well and you can vastly improve your products and services by learning what your customers actually want.

You can sort data into ideas, problems, and questions to then deal with accordingly. Questions and problems should be sent to the appropriate department. Negative feedback can be directed to the Customer Service or Product Development Team. Positive feedback to the Marketing Department to be placed on the website or used in social media posts as testimonials.

Here are some general trends to follow for different kinds of feedback:

Promoters: Show gratitude. Don’t be tempted to let saying thank you slide – you need to reward your customer for being so positive about your product or services!

Passive feedback: Engage them. Passive feedback is good in that it’s not negative – but it could obviously be better! Asking what you can do better to make them really happy is a sure way to make them feel valued. Note that passive customers are the group most likely to switch brands for a better offer, since they are not emotionally invested in the brand or offering.

Detractors: Delight them. Go out of your way to help negative respondents feel happy with your company again. Remember that detractors are emotionally invested in your brand and care enough to try to make things better. Don’t push them away, since losing a customer is usually forever!

Non-Respondents: Reach out. Find out why they’re not willing to provide feedback, and if possible, try to get them to respond!

For suggestions and ideas, have a vote on them to see what is more popular – the final decision should be taken by the Product Manager in any business, to see if you implement a suggestion.

Step 5: Implement Feedback

As noted, you can decide to implement changes based on customer feedback. After deciding, ideas can be defined and put into place.

Step 6: Notify Customers of Changes

There should always be a follow-up in the customer feedback loop. You need to notify your customers if you are making the changes they suggested, or if you are especially happy with their feedback. “Don’t neglect customers based on feedback, whether it’s positive or negative! All responses require a reply. Every time, it’s a chance to gain a new brand promoter. That’s how to successfully close the loop!” notes Antoine Andrews, a business writer at DraftBeyond and Researchpapersuk.

Conclusion

Creating a system to collect, analyze and then address customer feedback can create new business opportunities and make your company more popular than before. It can really reduce customer complaints, allow you to explore new opportunities and build relationships with your clients! Feedback is absolutely key in the customer engagement process.

Ashley Halsey is a professional writer at LuckyAssignments and Gum Essays who has been involved in many research projects throughout the United Kingdom. Mother of two children, she enjoys traveling, reading and attending business training courses in her spare time.

The post Closing the Customer Feedback Loop Done Right appeared first on Alchemer.

Do Something With Your Data

Of course, with the advent of the internet, data became a hot commodity. And customer data? Well, it doesn’t get much better than that. Companies began to recognize the value that better understanding their customers and what they have to say could improve customer satisfaction and drive sales. Now we have NPS (Net Promoter Score), CES (Customer Effort Score), and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction). However, just like an old comment box, a data pool full of unread comments is pretty useless. Until we do something with the information we get from our customers, there is little to be gained.

On its face, taking action on responses seems pretty simple. Receive feedback, act on it, and share it throughout the organization. More often, companies collect feedback, compile it, and share the aggregated data. At this point, it is very difficult to respond to each customer because they are now just a data point that is often a month old.

The secret is to act on individual responses first, then aggregate and address larger trends, using the systems and processes that are already in place. This is the foundation of operationalizing feedback.

How We Turned Feedback into Action at Survey Gizmo

You will hear a lot about operationalizing feedback in 2020, but what does that mean? Operationalizing feedback means putting responses into the hands of employees who can take action through the systems and processes they use every day.

For example, our Customer Success team used Alchemer’s open architecture to have NPS responses immediately trigger messages to the most appropriate people. Now NPS responses go directly into our support queue just like any other support email, and a message is sent to the account manager, both of whom can act on what customers are telling us.

When our Customer Success looked at their NPS process, they realized that much more was possible. Using the open architecture and low-code capabilities, the team created a solution that integrates with Alchemer’s existing enterprise software and processes. Now a passive or detractor score triggers a Slack message to the Account team as well as a support ticket within Service Cloud. The result is that a low NPS score is treated as a supportable event – tickets are created, support reaches out to the respondent, and the customer feels heard – all in real-time.

Becoming a Customer-Centric Organization

“You need to leverage customer feedback to make customers core to your business,” said Ryan Tamminga, VP of Customer Success at Alchemer. “This is how you become a truly customer-centric organization.

To become a customer-centric organization, invest in these five priorities:

1. Have or put a system in place to track and prioritize feedback;
2. Empower people on the front lines, working with customers, to do the right thing to keep a customer happy;
3. Get the feedback into the right hands so the people who can make a difference can address the issue in real-time;
4. Respond to every piece of feedback individually before aggregating the data;
5. Always close the loop and let your customers know they’ve been heard.

To learn more about putting NPS to work for you, check out our latest webinar here. In the webinar, our Customer Success team explains how Alchemer used our own tools to operationalize customer feedback, and ensure that the right people can act quickly on what our customers are telling us. To learn more about making NPS, CES, and CSAT work for you, click here.

The post Putting Feedback Into Action appeared first on Alchemer.

The G2 Crowd requires reviewers to register and only review software they actively use, which makes for more objective reviews.

Most Implementable and Fastest Enterprise Implementation

In the Enterprise Category, Alchemer ranked first in Survey Implementation Index: Enterprise (which evaluates Ease of Setup, Implementation Time, and User Adoption), even finishing ahead of Google Forms. If you look at the Month to Go Live metric, Alchemer came in at 0.71 months, while SurveyMonkey took more than twice as long on average (1.55 months) and Qualtrics averaged almost four times as long at 2.71 months. Alchemer also scored 25% better than SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics (and the industry average) in user adoption — which means that when you invest in Alchemer, it gets used.

Easiest to Do Business With

Of the major players, Alchemer also rated as the easiest to do business with for the Survey Relationship Index: Enterprise category (calculating Ease of Business, Likelihood to Recommend, and Quality of Support).

Leading in Mid-Markets too

Alchemer led the major players in the Survey Results Index: Mid-Market (calculating Likely to Recommend, Meets Requirements, and Estimated ROI) and the Survey Implementation Index: Mid-Market category (measuring Ease of Setup, Implementation Time, and User Adoption).

In addition, only Alchemer can integrate feedback into the systems and processes you already use. This means that you can truly operationalize your feedback, and not limit yourself to reports and dashboards. It’s how companies of all sizes make feedback core to their business.

When you want to get started collecting, integrating, operationalizing, and consolidating feedback, we’re ready to help.

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As technology has evolved over the years, a shift in the overall business landscape has occurred.

While in the past, companies held the majority of the power by presenting customers with relatively limited options for products and solutions, today the consumers are the ones dictating the directions in which companies are growing in terms of their product or service offerings.

Consumers have never had more options to choose from in terms of which companies they give their patronage to. If a customer has a bad experience, not only are you likely to lose that customer, but you also run the risk of their negative opinion spreading on the internet and ultimately tarnishing your brand reputation. 

Thanks to social media in particular, today’s consumers demand that companies leave them more satisfied than ever before by providing excellent customer service.

Opinions and sentiments held by customers have never been more impactful to the success or failure of a business. It’s never been easier for a dissatisfied customer to shout their opinion from a theoretical mountaintop in the form of a viral social media post. 

Due to these shifts in consumer demands, providing excellent customer service must be a top priority for enterprises of all sizes, in all industries. 

Measuring Customer Satisfaction

With excellent customer service being a top priority, it’s essential to measure progress closely and routinely by evaluating rates of customer satisfaction.

Related: Best Practices for Measuring Customer Satisfaction

Alchemer has published lots of great content to help you learn and maintain best practices for measuring customer satisfaction with surveys. If you feel that you could benefit from a refresher on how to effectively measure and improve customer satisfaction over time, be sure to check out the following resources:

• How to Use Customer Satisfaction Surveys the Right Way

• Sample Questions: Customer Satisfaction Surveys

• Increase Your Customer Satisfaction Survey Response Rate

• Turning Customer Satisfaction Survey Results into Action

• Customer Satisfaction Surveys: Always a Good Thing?


In addition to standard customer satisfaction surveys, Net Promoter Scores (NPS) can be leveraged to measure and boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. By routinely distributing NPS surveys, you can establish benchmarks in terms of how satisfied your customers are. 

NPS surveys also shed light on the areas of your business that are leaving customers dissatisfied. By highlighting these areas, you can then allocate the appropriate attention and resources to fix any issues that may be hurting your brand reputation.

Setting Goals to Achieve Excellent Customer Service 

It shouldn’t be expected that each and every business will provide excellent customer service from the get-go. However, any business that wants to survive in the long-term must effectively measure and improve customer service efforts on a consistent and routine basis.

This process begins with setting goals. Send out a survey to your current customers asking what they think of your customer service. Do your best to ask questions that will allow you to learn not only what needs improvement but also how things could be improved.

Once you’ve established a baseline understanding of how your typical customer feels about your customer service, it’s time to set tangible, measurable, and realistic goals.

The timeline for these goals can be determined by your internal team; however, it is a good idea to set monthly, quarterly, and annual goals.

Setting both short-term and long-term goals enables you to constantly keep excellent customer service top of mind as a high priority initiative for your organization. By consistently checking in on NPS scores and other customer satisfaction metrics, you’ll begin to be able to paint a picture of how customers feel about their interactions with you, and whether or not those customers are satisfied month over month, quarter over quarter, and year over year.

By striving to provide your customers with excellent customer service, you’ll be setting your business up for long-term success.

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