Feedback management solution creates and engages “the nurtured customer”

Achieving customer satisfaction is a common goal for any company. If customers are already very satisfied, the bar is raised, and customer loyalty is the next step. Reaching this goal requires some type of feedback from customers that can be applied to enhance business processes.

Enterprise feedback management systems strive to do just that by supplying a means for successful two-way communication between companies and their customers.

The CustomerEngage Suite from Allegiance is an on-demand, online solution that monitors and analyzes Web sites via email, surveys, and reports to discover patterns and solve issues before they become major problems.

“Our goal is to have an 'engaged' customer since it implies they are even more than satisfied or loyal,” says Chris Cottle, a company VP for Allegiance. “Engaged customers go out of their way to show their support, repeat interactions where they are satisfied, and they tend to form strong emotional attachments to a relationship.”

Collecting, measuring, and analyzing data are strong points of the Engage system. However, Cottle stresses that the solution's ability to apply results directly to the business is what sets it apart.

Engage provides quantifiable data that helps companies predict the consequences of customer relationships and act on them to become more profitable. Engage also can be customized with specific workflow and escalation processes to route feedback to the most appropriate person so action can be taken promptly.

“With the system, a customer complaint is sent directly to the person that handles it,” says Melanie Jones, e-commerce sales and marketing manager for Ultradent, a South Jordan, Utah-based supplier of dental materials. “If the issue is not resolved in three days, a message is sent automatically to a company VP to indicate that a customer has not yet received a response.”

Before implementing Engage a year ago, Ultradent relied on its Web Master to filter through comments and forward them to the appropriate contact.

“This process was very time-consuming since we had to wait for someone to check email, filter it, and then finally route it to the right person,” says Jones. “Our response time was slow, and there was no way to record and track our actions.”

The Allegiance Engage feedback management system drills into feedback categories to see how long it took to solve a problem, and view the range of satisfied versus dissatisfied customers.

Ultradent was able to catch a problem with its online registration process when an automatic report was issued, alerting a user to the complaint.

“Engage helps with trending when we start to see a pattern of problems, such as with delivery or a specific product,” says Jones. “We realized that one complaint actually represents about 10 because not everyone takes the time to issue a complaint.”

On Ultradent's Web site, a “Contact us” link takes the user directly to Engage, where a pull-down menu lists categories such as question, comment, or positive feedback.

“We've had customers that are very upset, saying they will never order again from us. But we talk to them and let them know we are listening,” says Jones. “Sometimes all we have to do is open up a direct line of communication and give them some personal attention.”