​@AdamK12  It’s interesting how the separation of the message from the messenger can lead to valuable insights, especially in customer feedback processes. Gathering data to drive actual improvements is crucial for any organization.

Do you think there are specific strategies that can enhance the effectiveness of feedback loops in different sectors?

Thanks ​@LeadersNetwork ! Some tactics that come to mind include:

• Think of specific user journeys or tasks that you can identify. Can you segment your satisfaction measures based on what users can do?
• Develop a way to perform gap analyses, again segmented by specific user journeys so that you can measure  how people interacted with the experience, versus how they prefer to interact.
• It’s also important to build a data-centric, ownership-based approach among product owners. This is hard when the emphasis has historically been on project management and the mentality needs to shift from completing projects based on managers’ direction to more self-directed approaches based in analytics. But it can happen over time.

Although it is hard to believe a government agency, or any organization for that matter, spending a billion on a survey going nowhere, Elon’s hyperbole does make one wonder what purpose surveys have in the first place...

And to be honest, apart from Marketing hijacking and misinterpreting the odd NPS score,  in my almost 20 years in enterprise service management I’ve not once seen a clear case of the Outer Loop being performed effectively and completely.

Which may explain why the field of CX (or XM) remains fractured across the globe for one. I’m honestly curious ​@AdamK12, have the business improvements added real value, or concrete efficiences been realised or a convincing ROI been shown for example?  

If we can convincingly answer such questions the value of surveys in particular, and managing the customer experience more generally, its benefits would sell themselves!

​@SteveBelgraver This is a really important question. I would frame it this way (using neutral language that will be clear to those in functions like marketing, finance, and operations whose stock in trade is quantitative results and outcomes):

• Digital and financial analytics tell us what our customers/stakeholders did, measured quantitatively in terms such as revenues and costs, value added, audience size, and many other measures, including change over time.
• However, in measuring those results, we lose an understanding of why customers/stakeholders make their choices and form opinions. This insight is also valuable to product, brand, and employee management.
• Combining these two channels of insight, we have identified tangible business improvements that have led to increased viewership of key products. This has allowed us to maintain an average NPS of 50 or above. Specific results have included:
  • Improved search capability on our digital collection to provide more accurate labeling of search results which increased user satisfaction
  • Identified consumers/patients as a major stakeholder for multiple key platforms which led to a significant redesign, resulting in expansion of the audience and improved credibility.
• Part of the challenge is skilling product or brand owners to identify product-specific KPIs that they can use to proactively manage their products. It’s definitely a tall order!