Editor’s note: Jason Taylor is CTO at marketing research firm MaritzCX, Lehi, Utah. Stephan Thun is CEO, Europe at MartizCX, Hamburg.
During an industry event, we discussed a problem that has become a source of irritation for more and more managers: the rise in consumer survey fatigue. Overwhelmed by product information, marketing messages and feedback requests, many customers simply block out well-meaning efforts at communication from companies.
Furthermore – and this is even more problematic – those who respond tend to represent the two extremes in attitude: they are so completely satisfied that they have to share it, or they are so dissatisfied that they have to vent. The overwhelming majority between these two poles is silent. Their critical feedback simply falls through the cracks, which makes it impossible to address them in a targeted way.
Many surveys are gathering too few relevant indicators of what customers really want and sometimes even a false picture of their priorities, which results in untapped sales potential and bad investments.
Statistical analysis
What does this mean for marketing researchers? What would be expedient is if they could derive patterns from the data and content of those who comment that would indicate how customers who generally do not comment think and act. Different levels of software solutions that segment characteristics have been around for a long time. In the process, however, breaking customers down on the individual level – and this aspect is more critical than ever – has mostly been left by the wayside.
Let’s take the example of an airline. Initially, a delayed flight is a nuisance for everyone involved. If the company responds at all, then it generally does so indiscriminately, with all of the passengers being treated (appeased) equally. But this approach puts companies at risk of losing customers.
An urgent task for marketing researchers is to break down feedback to the individual level. After all, for the airline, detailed information about every passenger, as well as feedback data from other travelers in the same situation, would be both helpful and profitable.
For example, knowing that a customer traveling alone with small children has already experienced three flight delays in the past year is precisely the kind of information that the company needs to respond with individual success-oriented solutions, such as offering the passenger a custom-tailored discount for the next booking.
An individual customer experience
In order to get this kind of information about customers who are reluctant to provide feedback, marketing researchers have to be proactive when developing new solutions. They will have to fuse survey data more tightly with organically growing customer data and use this information for customers that do not participate in surveys.
Forecasting models that include survey data from individual customers that can be applied to large customer populations serve as a starting point. These incorporate all of the objective attributes and all of the content ever collected by a company. Such models enable marketing researchers for the first time ever to create a more tangible, individual customer experience and enable companies to form adequate responses.
Identifying customer needs
Marketing researchers are increasing the capability to act on customer responses at an early stage, and then acting. For instance, they can detect churn tendencies, even before customers themselves become aware of them. And finally, they can not only identify precisely which customers require immediate proactive intervention most but also determine which customers’ loyalty is critical to the company.
This detailed data enables both the development of case management initiatives for a targeted individual contact as well as marketing campaigns with far-reaching effects. In addition, marketing researchers develop content of strategic long-term relevance that is of vital importance for corporate policy and internal decision-making processes. They build unique, forward-looking customer loyalty systems and, despite falling response rates, they increase the value of their companies’ customer data.
And what’s the upshot? We can stop talking about the problem of survey fatigue and start focusing on the rising ROI factor of the customer experience program.