What a company does with their customer survey forms makes a big impact on their customer experience programs. Often companies will gather customer feedback but fail to utilize the data collected. When a company does read and respond to customer feedback, they are richly rewarded by satisfied customers.
Giant Foods, a supermarket chain in the Washington area, not only collected customer surveys but responded to their requests. The Washington Post reports 60 of it’s 182 stores are now equipped with hand-held scanners which tally the costs of groceries. The scanners benefit the customer by keeping track of costs and stores historical purchases to be retrieved. The best benefit, is at the end of the shopping experience, items are scanned and ready to be paid for using any cash register. This benefit alone, extends to the shoppers using and not using the scanner by reducing wait times at the checkout lines.
What is important about Giant Foods innovative approach is it came directly from customer suggestions. The customers requested it and management was dedicated in delivering the best customer experience by meeting shopper needs. Without management using customer feedback surveys, the store wouldn’t be on the forefront of handheld scanners.
It pays to listen to your customers and respond with direct action. The best investment all companies should make is to implement a customer feedback program and use the data to implement improvements.
