Monitoring customer perspectives of service is an important part of managing the customer experience. The purpose of suggestion boxes is that they offer a great way to solicit customer feedback while it is fresh in the customer's mind. A strategically placed suggestion box can serve as a tool to help gauge the customer experience and is used for collecting customer comment cards.
1. Make the Box Eye Catching
Making sure the boxes are noticeable is important to ensuring the customer sees them. Be creative but keep them professional. Making them fun can work as long as it does not affect the credibility of the tool.
2. Easy Access
Customers should have easy access to feedback forms as well as a pen to fill them out. The easier you make it for the customer to give feedback, the more likely they will be to respond.
3. Locking Boxes
Comment card boxes should be locked to control access to the surveys. Constructive customer feedback is worth protecting and making sure there is a controlled access to the boxes is one way of doing that.
4. Place Them in a Strategic Location
Suggestion boxes should be strategically placed in public areas. Common visible spots are in the receptionist area, in the waiting room, by an elevator or anywhere there is public access.
Boxes should be emptied on a regular basis, whether it is daily or weekly. Someone should have responsibility to empty boxes and review cards.
5. Comment Cards Reviewed
Feedback should be read, analyzed and feedback should be incorporated into a global customer satisfaction strategy. Improvement suggestions should be incorporated into improvement plans and if a service recovery opportunity is identified from a customer comment, employees should be empowered to correct the problem and make things right with the customer.
Other thoughts:
- It is a good idea to also have employee suggestion boxes. Employee perspectives are important and can offer a lot of valuable insight into how work gets accomplished and how to improve work processes.
- Make sure someone stays on top of collecting feedback cards. The last thing you want is for an angry customer to leave a comment or complaint expecting to hear from someone and never hear back about their issue.
Some people think customer comment cards are a bad idea because it invites negative feedback. And there is a bit of truth to that, but if the suggestions are taken and put through the scope of the vision of the organization, they can often enlighten the organization on how to make itself better. It is like having a free consultant for your business. And who wouldn't want that?
