Opiniator

Opiniator is Approved Vendor for 4wardfast Consultants

Matt Selbie — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:06:44 +0000

We are delighted to announce that Opiniator has been approved by Fast Foward consulting as a Patient Experience Partner. Anthony Cirillo, and his team provide:

Patient Experience management
Strategic Marketing consulting
Boomer and Senior expertise

We are looking forward to working with the team.

Survey Fatigue – a big issue, even bigger exposure

Matt Selbie — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:10:19 +0000

From USA Today – “As inboxes fill with requests to appraise holiday purchases and trips, it’s prime time for feedback fatigue.”

The article is a nice reminder that whilst customer feedback can provide great value, there is a big exposure to the brand if used improperly.

Survey fatigue results from over-surveying. When someone who recently completed a survey from a particular organization is inundated with invitations to complete other surveys, they feel tired, or “fatigued” when it comes to taking surveys. There are three major exposures:

Lower response rates
Lower quality data
Brand impact – once someone forms an opinion that your organization doesn’t respect him/her because of over-surveying, it is very difficult to restore your image

The phenomena is well known yet we seem to face more requests every week, and we remain unconvinced that even if opinions are given, the business changes anything as a result.

Better to provide a way for the request for feedback to be:

Always on – make it convenient for the customer
Self selected – let the customers choose to supply their feedback or not
Short and easy – no fatigue, just a mild work-out!

Follow the above for higher engagement, and turn FATigue into INTRigue.

Could QR Codes be the New Comment Card – No, No, No!

Matt Selbie — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 06:11:13 +0000

An interesting article was posted in Hospitality Technology today with a provocative title capturing the current interest in QR codes by Cihan Cobanoglu, Ph.D., CHTP.

A nice, brief article claiming the virtues of this type of technology relative to the paper based system employed by many restaurants – but flawed in it’s conclusions hence was compelled to write back – The main counter-points are below:

We do agree that the only feedback that is of any value is that which is at point of experience. QR codes could be a way to get feedback BUT:

Smartphones are only just the majority device in the US
Even if you have a smartphone – they dont all have a built in QR code reader
Even if they have a reader, the awareness of the code and the ability to use the reader is suspect

The above would show that QR codes by themselves can never be the comment card for restaurants simply as they don’t yet have the reach. I would also invite you to Google ‘QR Code Issues’ and you will get an array of concerns from awareness to security.

For feedback to be of any use there are a number of factors that need to be in play:

Point of experience
100% customer reach
Convenient device
Convenient input methods
Anonymous option
Immediate analysis
Immediate alert capability to the business

If the above are in play – you have ‘ACTIONABLE FEEDBACK’ that can have a high ROI simply because the business will retain more customers and grow its cash flow. We have written about these before in a previous blog on the Six Laws of Customer Feedback.

Full disclosure – this is what my business does.

OPINIATOR is allows any customer to take a short survey at point of experience via the cell phone (voice, SMS or web ). We process the data live and publish via the web. Any out of norm scores are immediately sent to the restaurant and can even include the phone number of the customer. This means:

Issues can be fixed
Customers can be salvaged
Staff can be coached

Actionable Feedback – Engaged Customers — No defection

Again – good article but I disagree that QR codes be the new comment card – there are much better ways. If you have a look at our web site ‘about us’ you will see a few restaurant examples and articles.

Many marketers still ignoring dissatisfied customers on social media

Matt Selbie — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 01:04:06 +0000

The headline above above is from an Emarketer article from November 10th and lays out the facts in the assessment of business response to customer complaints picked up by social media. The genie is out of the bottle. On the one hand, social media is the proclaimed (self proclaimed?) answer to the marketers prayers – but on the other is the the worst nightmare - an easy repository for the quick of keyboard if the brand experience is poor – so how best to deal with the latter demonic scenario? – The article says most businesses don’t!

Check the quote below:

“But nearly half of companies surveyed think their customers don’t comment or complain about their products and services online, and almost a quarter did not know whether their customers did so or not.”

You’re kidding right? The very same folk who think social media walks on water are the very same that are ignorant of its corrosive power - And this is what is scary. A couple of problems

Isn’t the trumpeted virtue of social media it’s intimacy…that the CEO is personally listening? What happens when this contract is broken by the business

Even assuming a comment has been published – what is the problem, what is the response? At best social media is unstructured froth from the few. Reacting to this may be appeasement but may also be foolhardy behavior – perhaps even solving the wrong problem.

Surely it’s better to ask more customers, at point of experience with integral analysis and alerts so the business can fix anything ‘live’

Too Many Places To Complain, and the late Ross Ashby

Matt Selbie — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 02:06:00 +0000

When I was a young beardless boy at undergrad school in England, I liked Operations Research. It seemed so logical and less fluff. During those days we learnt about variety – specifically Ross Ashby and his law of Requisite Variety. It states that variety is needed to limit variety – like having grid squares on a map to improve utility. My favorite quote of his was “Limit variety, for that is the act of control….” – boy he was good.

Now jump XX years ahead and Google “Complaint Sites”. You get 118MM….count’em 118MM.

Forbes has their own, as does Mainstreet and several others, and no surprises here – there are guides on how to complain, complaint sites and of course the obligatory “top 5 / 10 / 100 complaint sites” – even the crowd at MakeUseOf.com are getting in on the action.

Ashby would be spinning in his grave….imagine that, a guide and reference to the multitude of sites sprung up for the purposes of spleen venting. It would be his view that the entire process were inefficient – where do you go to be heard among the many options? BUT thanks to social media and search engines, the customer always has a venue to be seen, and the business nowhere to hide.

The moral of the story – get customer feedback, improve the business so no one has a need to get on this confusing, myriad of venting rooms.

Shoppers Will Walk if not Happy

Matt Selbie — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:33:06 +0000

No surprises I suppose but the latest study from American Express has a buffet of statistics showing why service matters and how it is so tied to customer defection. Here are a couple that resonate at this time of the year:

64% of customers who have walked out of a store becuase of poor customer service in the past 12 months.

70% of customers who say they are willing to spend more at companies that provide superior customer service.

9 is the average number of people a customer will tell about a good customer service experience…..but here is the bad news……

16 is the average number of people a customer will tell about a bad customer service experience.

The latter shows ’tis still not the season to be jolly ….or complacent.

Retaining Flooring Customers Through Feedback

Matt Selbie — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:35:38 +0000

Nice article from ‘Flooring the Customer‘ with a combination of commentary about the importance and tactics of customer feedback, analysis and survey types. The industry highlighted is flooring, but the principles are universal.

Opiniator captures “moment of truth” customer feedback on the fly

Matt Selbie — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:34:52 +0000

The good folks at VoxusPR in Tacoma have been good enough to do a write up on OPINIATOR, what we do and what we solve. It’s a good summary of why we exist and how the technology we have continues to help businesses stop customer defection by providing real-time point of experience customer feedback, with integrated analysis and alerts. The full article can be read here.

Customer Feedback to Keep your Customers, Grow your business

Matt Selbie — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:34:04 +0000

Opiniator was fortunate enough to appear in a comprehensive article for the Canadian Floor Coverings web site. The latter targets the carpet and flooring industries in Canada and the article covers how customer feedback can be used to prevent defection and increase engagement. Survey and question design are covered

The full article appears here.

What Does a Lost Customer Cost you?

Matt Selbie — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:32:18 +0000

Opiniator was featured in a great article by Patrick Wheeler of Management Contract Services recently. As always, Patrick reviews the facts, provides the summaries and a sample P&L to demonstrate the massive impact customer defection has on a business.

To review the full article – click here.