Low Touch to High Touch: Customer Follow-up Strategies for Any Size Company

A good customer experience improvement program depends on two-way conversations between companies and their customers. It has been reported that nearly half (43%) of customers don’t bother complaining because they don’t believe companies care. Get ahead of that stat by demonstrating your company not only wants the feedback, you act on it. The three-tiered approach to customer follow-up (high touch, medium touch, and low touch) allows every company to effectively respond to customers, even if they can’t commit a lot of resources.

Treat customer feedback like a gift. It’s not enough to just gather Net Promoter Scores (NPS), you need to follow up with responders to let them know that 1) you appreciate their effort, and 2) their feedback has impact. Even if you can’t deliver everything customers ask for, they will remember that they were heard and appreciated. Closing the feedback loop will help you retain customers, increase response rates, and hopefully create loyal brand advocates. 

Ready to respond? Good! Consider your resources and choose from three levels of engagement:

1. High Touch. This more resource-intensive approach has proven very effective for B2B companies. Every time a customer gives feedback, a Customer Success Manager or Account Manager contacts them. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be an in-depth correspondence. Sometimes a simple “thank you” is all that’s needed. Other times, you can dig deeper into their response (and deeper into the relationship) in order to make the feedback even more actionable. 
2. Medium Touch. We get it — not every business has the headcount to personally respond to every piece of feedback they receive. Automating the feedback loop is a time and resource saver. Segment your customer responses by the rating each customer gives and you can still have a personalized impact where it counts most. Your follow up plan could look something like this:
   • Promoter. Send a “thank you” and possibly offer an incentive for the customer to share your product.
   • Detractor. Route the response to Customer Success or Customer Support to uncover why that responder isn’t happy, especially if they didn’t leave further feedback explaining their rating.
   • Passive. Deliver a message to passive raters who didn’t leave feedback, engaging them in a “What would make you LOVE us?” conversation.
3. Low Touch. If you have too many users to provide individual responses, or you don’t have contact information, you can still close the loop! Develop blanket communications that offer transparency and information sharing: 
   • A monthly blog post or newsletter. Summarize the feedback you’ve received, and detail the actions you’ll be taking in response to issues customers have raised. 
   • Product updates or release notes. CX champions in product or UX can use these to communicate “We heard you! Today we <fixed X or launched Z>.”

All three levels of engagement deliver impact, so choose the one that best fits your needs. Pearl-Plaza customer Albacross chose a medium touch model, which resulted in 2X the NPS scores and a 2X ratings increase on Capterra.

By closing the loop with customers, you show them that you’re not only listening to their feedback, you consider it so important that you’re using it to make their experiences better. This simple step can turn ambivalent customers into vocal fans.