Closing the Loop
We’ve all heard about the black hole that customers assume their feedback ends up in. Many of us may even have that black hole in our organizations. Roger Blumberg makes sure that’s not the case at Ariba.
Blumberg is senior director of customer strategy for the spend management software vendor. He implemented a compelling closed-looped survey process, which he shared with attendees of IQPC’s Customer Feedback Summit earlier this week. Here’s what caught my attention:
Blumberg started by creating a holistic feedback strategy that included going from nine survey vendors to only one. This ensured that the company would stop over-surveying some customers while under-surveying others (or not surveying them at all).
The next thing Blumberg did was to tie bonuses to satisfaction survey results. But here’s the catch: The sales team’s bonuses are not tied to results, which avoids the dreaded car sales survey situation that so many people complain about. Instead, salespeople’s bonuses are based on getting their customers to respond to the surveys. Does it work? Ariba’s survey response rate is 75 percent.
Additionally, Ariba gives a “spotlight bonus” of $250 plus a plaque to employees who exceed customer expectations, as noted in survey responses.
Finally, Blumberg has created a system for responding to customers who have shared their feedback with Ariba. This includes callbacks from executives when necessary. It also includes personalized letters to respondents thanking them for their feedback on X topic and noting how the company acted on that specific feedback. To me, this is a powerful relationship builder.
Leave a comment