ServiceFriday: Why Asking for Positive Customer Feedback is Essential

Complaints and negative customer feedback certainly get our attention as service providers. Current research mostly focuses on addressing the consequences of negative customer feedback, but is positive customer feedback just as important to influence customer behavior and service outcomes? An article in the Journal of Services Marketing explores this question. In it, author Linda Nasr and co-authors outline the importance of analyzing positive customer feedback, otherwise known as “PCF”, and found that it has a crucial impact on customers’ behavior, front-line employees’ behavior, and consequently, on the company’s performance.  

“Our findings suggest a number of important managerial implications. First, regarding the solicitation of customer feedback, companies should encourage customers to express PCF. In a recent study, Bone et al. (2017) found that starting a customer survey with open-ended questions soliciting positive feedback (e.g. by asking what went well) increased customer purchase behaviour, as the focus on their positive experiences indirectly affects their future behaviour. Similarly, our findings show additional benefits of communicating and receiving personal PCF; therefore, we encourage front line employees to ask customers directly to express what went well in a service encounter. Moreover, by inviting customers to speak about their positive experiences, managers can learn new and unexpected details. Similarly, they can ask specific follow-up questions which can help identify the important element of the service as well as what makes the service stand out from competitors.” 

The authors found that acknowledgement of a good service experience is the most important feedback attribute for potential customers. This is why service providers should find ways for a customer to easily express what was good about their service experience, and for the customer to feel at ease doing so. That way, such positive experiences can be shared more broadly, which will create a positive impact on the company’s image. “Companies can compile the received PCF and communicate it back to the public in the form of quotes and narratives from satisfied customers used on the company website and social media sites. This authentic type of communication could attract more customers than other more expensive and time-consuming customer acquisition campaigns.”

To access the article in the Journal of Services Marketing, visit Emerald Insight at this link: https://bit.ly/2IsNY0W (A fee may apply.)