An axiom, if ever there was one. But what if customers see problems with your business that you do not? As customers, we have all had moments where we wonder “where’s the manager” and “can’t they see what I’m seeing.” Not knowing or not seeing the business through the eyes of the customer can negatively impact business health.

Optics Matter

Too often, business managers see everything through the lens of an operator. This can result in overlooking service issues obvious to customers. Everyone has experienced a time when they needed help only to see staff members too engrossed in non-customer-related tasks to notice. The customer feels ignored, prompting negative thoughts that can impact the rest of their experience – an outcome no business can afford.

Many business situations can create poor optics from the customer’s standpoint.

• Poor or slow service
• Inadequately trained employees
• Lack of cleanliness in the establishment
• Product missing from display shelves – out of stock
• Safety or maintenance issues

These are just a few examples that customers spot quickly, resulting in poor optics. Of course, your onsite managers should notice and correct these issues, but that isn’t always the case.

Lack of Staffing Can Make the Situation worse

At present, there is a lack of service workers across the country

A shortage of employees will naturally negatively impact your customer service. Over-worked staff will make more errors. A lack of employees on a shift may cause delays in checkouts and other responses to customer needs.

Bringing in new employees to fill the gaps creates its own problems. It takes time and manpower to train new employees. New workers slow down your entire process and often cannot answer questions posed to them by customers. You may be aware of the impact of new employees in training, but your customers only see a decrease in customer service.

Make It Easy for Customers to Communicate with Your Business

It’s human (customer) nature to want to share noticed problems directly with the offending business. However, if perceived as nonproductive or, worse, a hassle, they will opt to share their poor experience with their circle of friends, family, and social media circles. If you want them to share their experiences with you, rather than others, feedback should be encouraged.

The process needs to be both easy and convenient. Make it easy for customers to connect with you through preferred channels. Can they message you directly or live chat with you through your website? Are you notified when negative comments are posted to your social media channels and common customer review sites? The more options available, the more likely you are to hear from them and gain their input.

Now That You Know – Respond!

When your customers take the time to share their opinions and experiences with you, treat it as the valuable gift it is. Respond to them as quickly as possible. A delay in acknowledging their input may reinforce any negative experience they reported to you. A quick response says, “You are important to us.”

Unfortunately, getting the customer feedback from multiple channels sorted and sent to the appropriate person in the organization has been a challenge for customer service departments. The technical solutions offered have been expensive to purchase, operate and maintain. That’s why we created Guest-Note.

Guest-Note Keeps the Conversation Productive

Guest-Note is Customer Feedback Management (CFM) designed to continually improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your customer response team. It’s SaaS designed to keep the customer front-and-center in your organization. Guest-Note makes it possible for those within the organization closest to a customer’s problems to be part of the solutions.

It uses machine learning to help identify new categories and trends that team members can otherwise miss in customer feedback. The use of AI throughout the program works behind the scenes to uncover the valuable insights that often go unnoticed in unstructured customer feedback.