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Unlocking the Power of Proactive Customer Feedback: A New Approach to B2B CX



John Goodman, in his article on Customerthink.com, asserts that many companies fall short in gathering and leveraging customer feedback. Traditional surveys often overlook actual issues, while unvoiced customer complaints can significantly affect business outcomes.


CCMC's 2023 National Rage Study, as Goodman cites, revealed that over 21% of consumers did not register a complaint about their most serious problem over the past year. This silent dissatisfaction can result in negative word-of-mouth, significantly impacting revenue.


He introduces several innovative strategies to gather more actionable feedback. He recommends drawing from non-traditional Voice of the Customer (VoC) data sources, which includes operational data that can provide timely and accurate insights. For instance, a delivery company with operational data predicting a delay in the delivery of 200 packages could proactively warn customers, reducing the predicted 70 complaint calls and 20 negative surveys the next day.


Similarly, he discusses an insurance company that, anticipating a rate increase due to market forces, warned customers 90 days in advance, leading to 80% lower customer anger, increased loyalty, and fewer complaint calls.


Goodman also proposes altering survey structure, focusing on potential problems instead of overall satisfaction. In a study of 560 SaaS-using companies, he found that 20% of manufacturing and distribution firms did not voice a complaint even once about their most serious issue, despite having a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of -53. If they complained and remained dissatisfied, their NPS rating plummeted to -86. The dissatisfied customers shared their negative experiences with an average of 7.1 business associates, further damaging the company's reputation.


He advocates for quantifying the impact of issues, including those not complained about. He refers to a steel company study involving 1,100 client companies, where 23% did not complain about problems. Among those who complained and were left dissatisfied, 50% wouldn't make another purchase and would give negative recommendations to an average of 3.8 business associates.


In addressing these issues, Goodman stresses the importance of a single executive leading the charge on cross-functional customer experience (CE) issues to ensure accountability and action, thereby reducing cycle time.


For more context and details, please refer to the original article


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