How to Pick the Right Customer Feedback Management Solution: 7 Key Questions to Answer

“These things changed my life!”

We were at around mile 6 of the
Bentonville Half Marathon
when I got into a conversation with a fellow runner about footwear. He was
wearing a newer “rocker” style shoes
which have rounded soles.

“I heard mixed reviews about those,” I said.

“Well, my knees were so bad before, I basically couldn’t run anymore. I
started running with these and now I don’t have any pain,” he said trotting
along at good pace.

When I tried on rocker shoes at the running shop I almost face planted in
the store. Clearly not for me. What is right for one runner is not for
another.

Picking the right Voice of the Customer or EFM or Forrester now calls
“Customer Feedback Management” (CFM) software partner is an analogous situation. What will work great in one
organization may fall flat in another. But how to select the best one for
your organization?

Much like buying a pair of running shoes, the first thing you need to do is
figure out what you need. While there is certainly difference in
navigation, data visualization, and tool sets that are easy to see, there
are “below the surface” issues endemic to the design philosophies of
software platforms.

Based on my experience in building, vetting, and using these software
platforms for the last two decades, I wanted to share the top 7 “gotchas”
that, if left unanswered, can bring CX programs to their knees well into
the deployment. If you are looking for a new provider or starting a new CX
program make sure you answer these critical question with your would-be
software partner before you consummate the relationship.

1. Do you Need Self Service?

Do you want to do the heavy lifting yourself or do you want to have some
else do it? Not all SaaS providers are the same. Some software providers,
such as Qualtrics, Clarabridge, and others provide this “self-serve”
option. In this scenario you may be in command of loading sample, building
the survey, deploying it, configuring reporting, and running analyses. This
is appealing to the research oriented types.

The allure here is control and a lower price point. However, caveat emptor is certainly a phrase to keep in mind. If you go the
self-service route make sure you have the time and resources to dedicate to
it. Sometimes the allure of a lower self-service price point is a powerful
elixir for purchasing and the end user is left holding the bag to staff to
it. Happily many software firms offer services as well (either direct or
through partners) to help you out if you get stuck.

2. How Many Nodes Do You Have?

Nodes are front line end units in a distributed CX system. They can be call
center representatives, dealerships, bank branches, distributors, or any
unit that is the lowest level for which you wish to aggregate and display
data. The power (and cost) of software you can vary greatly according to
the number of nodes you have how and how they are organized (#3 below). If
you are a non-distributed B2C situation (like online stores), then the
level of sophistication you need will be relatively low. If you are Subway,
Starbucks, or AT&T with literally tens of thousands of physical stores
globally, then yes, you will want to pick a provider who is really really good at this kind of work.

3. How Complex is Your Hierarchy?

Ok, now don’t go to sleep on me here but this issue is very important. I
have seen many times this esoteric issue either make or break a CX
program. Organizational hierarchy is how your organization’s end nodes
(e.g., stores) are placed into a logical (hopefully) nested hierarchy. It
usually goes something like this: many stores go into a region, many
regions go into an area, many areas go into a country, and the countries
roll up to global. There are infinite number of flavors by which firms
organize themselves. If your organization has no nodes, you are dismissed
from this class. Please skip to point 4.

There are many issues that can throw an ugly wrench in CX programs when it
comes to hierarchy. Some complications for a potential
CX software suitor are: the amount of hierarchy change over time, the
number of concurrent hierarchy schemes, horizontal hierarchy overlays (such
as departments in a retail store), and role access bound to hierarchy
structure. When selecting a CX
software partner make sure you make your needs are very explicit with examples
to avoid unpleasant surprises for both of you at deployment.

4. How Do You Need to Summarize Your Feedback?

Once upon a time, we would collect data and then aggregate the results at
the end of the month. We would post these in tabular form or perhaps a bar
chart or two and through it up on the intranet for folks to look at. It was
a simple time. Life was good.

Today, for some CX studies (particularly relational or “wave” studies) this
is still fine. For post transactional or “in the moment” type of CX
programs this is generally not. It comes down to the use case. Ask yourself
“do I need to take action off of the information immediately?” Usually in
transactional studies that answer is yes because of hot alerts.

Another important consideration is around the handling of historical data.
Software types will typically “backcast” scores based on the current
hierarchy. For example, if store 123 was in district 3 in January and was
moved to district 4 in May’s reporting, then store 123 is reflected in
district 4 historically (i.e., January through May). If you have a need to
see that store in their original district/region (i.e., “moment in time”)
due to an incentive need or other hierarchy score continuity requirement
you will want to make this requirement abundantly clear. This, for database
folks, is what
Rob Burgundy
would say is “kind of a big deal”.

5. What Kind of Tools Do You Need?

Tool sets are another important differentiator. Some organizations
primarily requirement is tracking KPIs and are happy to have a nice
reporting site. You will find software companies are stronger or weaker on
UI/UX and this will become a consideration since it will drive adoption.

However, if you have other needs then you will want to make sure your
software partner has that capability or can partner to provide it.
Common tools include case management, performance planning, action planning
(group level problem solving), collaboration tools, marketing integration,
tabulation tools, analytical tools, and API capabilities. Companies such as
Medallia, InMoment, MaritzCX, Responsetek and others have well-defined
suites of add on tools.

Buy what you need. Just like a car, the features you buy, the more
expensive it is going to get. Also, unneeded features can overwhelm end
users, thus reducing adoption. If you are starting out, start
simple. Buy the Harley Sportster; you can always upgrade to the V-Rod later.

6. Is Your Program Local or Global?

This, too, is a very important issue to surface early on. Global programs can
be orders of magnitude more complicated than programs that operate in a few
countries. Outbound survey language is only a surface level consideration.
In bound text (and if it needs coding) can be very complicated. Issues of
localization (phone numbers, date formats) can also hamper some programs.

ETL can become onerous as different regions have different levels of
sophistication in retaining customer data. Data security and hosting also
can be become a concern (e.g., for some reason Russia doesn’t like
Americans holding their citizens data in the states). If you have a global
need, you will want to partner with someone who can handle this level of
complexity.

7. Do You Have Specific Vertical Needs?

Lastly, the CFM world is surprisingly still nascent when it comes to
vertical expertise. Each software provider grew up in a certain vertical
and so that’s how they tend to view the world initially. Features and
approaches that are a given in one vertical are sometimes unheard of in another. For example, social media
integration at the property level is table stakes in hospitality but
largely irrelevant in retail banking (do you tweet about your local bank
branch?). Many software providers can and do stretch across verticals. Just
be aware of your idiosyncratic needs and make sure you are explicit.

Buy What You Need

Much of this stuff is patently unsexy behind-the-scene functionality, but
critical for potential clients to achieve a good fit for their needs. CX
software providers are exceptionally gifted at sales and some will attempt
to convince you they can do everything for everyone. At this point in time,
this is simply is not the case.

Ask the hard questions and then verify them. In addition, ask if you can
take those shoes out for a test drive. If possible, take a test
drive with your own historical data. This is an increasingly accepted
practice in the CX software community and many software providers will do
for low cost or free. It won’t catch some of the dynamic areas I have
outlined above, but it will give you a very good feel for the functionality
of the site and what is there, or not.

While there are certainly other areas for consideration in selecting a CFM
provider, these are the top areas that I have found can really make or
break a system. If left unanswered and unresolved you may face some very
unpleasant outcomes. Way worse than blisters.