Customer feedback is being increasingly recognised as critical to success. Customers like to be asked for their feedback (so long as they think it's leading somewhere other than down a black hole) and are increasingly giving that feedback whether they are asked for it or not. That feedback can be direct to the service provider or indirectly through social media sites such as Twitter, and increasingly through instant feedback mechanisms where smartphones are playing a key role in communication. So there really is no hiding place, and it makes sense for organisations to devise and implement coherent customer feedback strategies. The key for customers is that when they give feedback they feel that it means something tangible, that something will be done about it, and most importantly  and especially if that feedback is negative, that the organisation is taking steps to redress the situation and make improvements going forward.

Recent research suggests that most organisations have some form of 'voice of the customer' strategy. Sounds good doesn't it? But  where a lot of organisations are falling down is that while they may have an all singing all dancing VOC strategy they are not taking meaningful steps to actually listen to that customer voice. And some others, while thay may be  listening to that voice, are doing precious little to  take real action based on the feedback and insight they are gaining from their most important single asset - their customer base. We are all customers in our everyday lives and we know that organisations have more data and more realinsight into us and what makes us tick than ever before - enough to be able to take a single view of us, including on the feedback we give them.

So there really is no excuse now for organisations not to get their feedback act together. Those that do will benefit in the long run because a customer who feels understood and who feels that their comments and views mean something to the organisation they are spending their hard earned money with will inevitably give more of that hard earned money to the organisation that proactively asks for their opinion and then takes appropriate action. 'Closing the feedback loop' is  another favourite industry phrase, but along with 'voice of the customer ' there is a real anger that we are doing little more than a box ticking exercise. The one I prefer is 'feeding back on the feedback' where we act on the feedback we receive and let our customers know that we have done so and give them real feedback on what resulted from them investing their time and energy with us.

This will be one of the key themes in our upcoming Customer Engagement Club Directors Forum around Customer Feedback  in London on March 21, where there will be some hot case studies looking at organisations who are walking the feedback walk andf talking the feedback talk. It would be great to see you there. To register just go the the home page of our website www.customerengagementclub.com

The Customer Engagement Club will be celebrating its second birthday soon and to mark the occasion we are moving to an improved new online offering, will be ramping up further our hugely successful face-to-face Directors Forums, and following feedback from our community, will be renaming ourselves the Customer Engagement Network - which our customers and partners say (and we agree) more accurately reflects on who we are and what we do.

2012 promises to be an exciting while at the same time hugely  challenging year for all of those who operate in the customer space and we intend to be perfectly positioned  to offer our 'network' everything  they need to devise and implement successful customer and employee engagement strategies. So watch out for our new look and our new offering coming soon.

Meantime our next Directors Forum on Thursday January 26 will take a long hard look at the changing face of the contact centre as organisations interact with their customers  through an ever increasing number of offline, online, social and mobile channels. If you want to get a handle on the contact centre of the future then our Multichannel Customer Engagement for Contact Centres Directors Forum is the place to be. Go to www.customerengagementclub.com to register. 

For those of you who don't know it,  this is National Customer Service Week in the UK, a once a year celebration of the key role that great customer service plays in the ongoing prosperity of organisations. I applaud the NCSW initiative, and anything that draws wider attention to how  organisations interact with their customers is to be welcomed. But how about the other 51 weeks of the year? One of the dangers of having a single week a year focussing on customer service is that there may not be that same focus the rest of the year - in my view every week should be National Customer Service Week.

In the frankly dire economic climate being faced by consumers today - and where even the mighty Tesco has just seen sales fall for the first time in two decades - it is those organisations who focus continually on their customers and gain the insight they need to give them what they want when they want it  and through the channel that suits them who will survive and indeed thrive. This week board members will sit in on calls to their contact centre, there will be celebrations  of great service in offices and retail outlets and call centres and perhaps even through social and mobile channels, up and down the country, but what about next week?

Because next  week and the week after, and the month after are just as important as this week, infact more so. Nothing wrong with NCSW, nothing wrong at all, but we  must just be sure that it doesn't  turn into an annual box ticking exercise and where lip service is being paid to customer service for the rest of the year. The way to make sure that happens is for organisations to focus on and understand the real competitive and performance advantage that comes from giving great customer service and, dare I say it, effective customer engagement. 

That understanding has to come from the very top, and while  board execs sitting in on contact centre calls once a year can be an eye opener for them and make them feel relieved when they get back to their shiny office, if it is no more than that, and the context and the lessons are not being learned, then it is frankly a once every year waste of bloody time. Customer engagement and measurement strategies must become part of the very fabric of how we do business - the DNA if you like that puts profitable customers at the centre of everything. And of course the best way to work out the current and potential future value of customers is through the understanding and insight that comes from  meaningful engagement through feedback and feeding back on that feedback.

So let's all have a purposeful National Customer Service Week - and then redouble our strategic focus on our customers, both internal and external, next week and beyond. Here at the Customer Engagement Club we believe in practising what we preach - and to this end we will be addressing some of the issues and challenges I have highlighted in this blog  in our upcoming Customer Engagement Club Directors Forums on October 13, November 3 and December 8 - be great to see you there, and for more details and to register simply go to www.customerengagementclub.com  and our home page where you will also find the latest digital issue of Customer Engagement magazine. Enjoy.

Some interesting new research out this week detailed in our weekly alert on how organisations who try to force customers down channels of their (that is the organisation's) choosing,  often in an attempt to cut costs, are finding this tactic, let's face it it hardly warrants the moniker strategy, is backfiring on them. That should not come as too big a surprise because we are all customers and we all like to deal with our product and service providers on our terms and through the medium we want to use. What is significant is the detrimental bottom line impact that such a stance is having on those organisations who try to dictate channel choice to their customers, and perhaps more importantly the positive impact on the bottom line of  those who are taking a more enlightened view.

We are constantly hearing  - and talking - about how the dynamic of the relationship between organisations and their customers has changed, and here is a living, breathing example of just how fundamental that change is. Historically organisations have been used to dictating the channel(s) of service and finding enough compliant customers to make it a viable business model. But that's not the case any more and savvy organisations have not only woken up to the fact, they are leveraging their customers' behaviour for mutual benefit by faciitating their ability to choose a channel that is good  for the customer and also good for the business.  Without going all Brave New Worldy about it, I believe  the future for successful customer relationships is  through meaningful two-way dialogue and collaboration between provider and customers when and where that is relevant - with the channels for that collaboration being on the customers' terms. More organisations are now taking their customer engagement measurement capabilities more seriously and that is going to be one of the areas we look at in our upcoming Customer Engagement Measurement Directors Forum in November (details of all our forums can be found at www.customerengagementclub.com and in our Customer Engagement digital magazine on the home page of the website)

We are not called the Customer Engagement Club for nothing - and here 'engagement' is indeed the pivotal word. If we can engage our customers through dialogue and collaboration, and they feel they are helping shape the way we do business with them and the products and services we provide, then the emotional triggers that control buying decisions will be satisfied - an engaged customer is a loyal customer and in these dark days of economic gloom and doom, retaining what we have is core to survival and success.  A customer 'retention' strategy should be a customer 'engagement 'strategy and if customers are comfortable with the channel they are using with us, and have the ability to choose the channel that is best for them in any given circumstance, then we are well on our way to gaining the engagement that is the key to competitive advantage. That's the bottom line!