I was recently interviewed by Tom Hoffman of the 1to1 Blog about the growing use of smartphones and how it is affecting the collection of customer feedback.
In the interview, I mentioned that it is important to first realize that today’s customers are in charge of the conversation. They want to speak to the company in the channel or medium of their choice. The smartphone is becoming the platform that people use to run everything they do in life. Therefore, a growing number of companies are looking at using the smartphone to gather feedback and perform customer surveys.
When a company asks Allegiance whether they should implement mobile feedback, we respond in the same way we do to other channels or mediums. You first need to look at your demographics. If your customer base is using mobile, there is a good chance that they would be receptive to giving you feedback through a mobile interface. The customer experience is what is going to be driving that decision.
There is no question that smartphone adoption is exploding. Many companies are finding that by connecting with customers this way, they can tap into new and unexpected markets. Allegiance helps companies on a one-to-one basis by doing a needs analysis and use case scenarios. We help them understand if the time is right for them to use the mobile medium. A major goal of the analysis is to be able to correlate survey response rate and customer experience against overall customer retention and purchase volume. This is something we help companies to measure and map out.
With mobile feedback, it is not a question of if you should do it, it is a question of when. We advise companies to be open to new channels, but help them think it through and make a thorough analysis on paper first. If it makes sense, the next step is to test with a small audience. If that goes well, it can be rolled out on a larger scale.
To listen to the full interview, go to:
www.bit.ly/bH84AW
