56% of leaders haven’t spoken to a customer in over a month 🤐 - New Report
A survey about surveys
A slightly different CX Stories this week, partly because I’m almost certainly currently stood in a long queue waiting to get on a ride at Disney.
Last week, The Foundation launched our latest industry report, The Myth of Feedback - or why do companies spend so much money on surveys that annoy customers, give poor data, and ironically push leaders further away from their customers?
🗣️ Over the past two months, we spoke to 1,500 members of the public and over 200 business leaders (and yes, we do appreciate the irony of doing a survey about surveys).
It uncovered:
📝 78% customers think they receive too many requests for feedback
🤐 53% of business leaders aren't customers of their own business and 56% haven't spoken to a customer in over a month
📣 Only 14% of customers regularly respond to survey requests....
🧠... and of those that 64% give little thought to their responses
This might be ok if it led to action. But it doesn't.
🛠️ Only 30% of leaders say they regularly use the insight they gain to take action.
🙉 And this problem doesn't seem to be going away. Two-thirds of leaders say they receive too many surveys - but 53% think they send out the right amount.
This approach is well-meaning, but dangerous. It convinces leaders that they're close to what matters to their customers, whereas in truth they're only really close to (some) customers' opinions of their business.
The focus becomes on hitting a number, not achieving a better outcome for customers. And it stops leaders spending real time with real people, increasing the distance between them and what they're customers experience.
There is a better way - seeing the world from the outside-in, immersing in customers lives to experience what they experience first-hand. This is harder, more inconvenient. But it's also the only way to truly trailblaze on behalf of your customers and jump ahead of your competitors, rather than following them, or just fixing pain points.
Full report available for download for free on The Foundation website. It's worth a read.