â–¶ Companies Not Feedback Fans: While consumers are increasingly engaging with brands through social media, the vast majority of companies—94%—do not use social media to gather customer feedback, according to a study from MarketTools. How are companies gauging consumer response then?
• The study found that the most common ways companies gather customer feedback are: e-mail/online surveys (51%), formal phone surveys (28%) and informal phone calls (28%).
• The study also revealed that there’s some disparity in how companies think and how they act. Although 92% of respondents believe that satisfied customers are very or extremely important to their company’s bottom line, fewer than half (42%) solicit customer feedback on a continuous basis, and more than one-fifth (22%) solicit feedback only once a year or not at all.
• Still, this mentality might be shifting: 39% of executives surveyed said that their companies increased focus on customer satisfaction in 2010 versus 2009, with 21% stating that they invested more in customer satisfaction-related products and services in 2010 versus 2009.
Source: MarketTools