Closing the Customer Feedback Loop

Reprint: R0912C

Realizing that customer retention is more critical than ever, companies have ramped up their efforts to listen to customers. But many struggle to convert their findings into practical prescriptions for customer-facing employees. Some companies are addressing that challenge, say three Bain & Company consultants, by creating feedback loops that start at the front line. They forgo elaborate, centralized feedback mechanisms in favor of quickly polling customers with the question, How likely are you to recommend us? Firms use the responses to calculate their Net Promoter Score (NPS), a metric everyone in the organization can track.

The greatest impact comes from relaying the results immediately to the employees who just served the customers—and empowering those employees to act on any issues raised. Allianz used this method to pinpoint make-or-break customer experiences. Claims representatives in a European insurance operation, for instance, learned that delays in reimbursement were a huge source of frustration for customers. Workers rapidly solved the problem by developing a new set of protocols, which spurred a sizable increase in NPS—and in policy renewals.

Over time, NPS feedback can also be compiled into a baseline of customer experience, which firms can then draw upon to field-test ideas or make process and policy refinements. The household fixture maker Grohe did this by tracking the effect that the number of sales calls had on NPS in one of its markets. Grohe saw that scores spiked at three visits and then fell off. In response, it cut back on unproductive customer contact and freed up 25% more sales capacity.