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Customer engagement has become a priority for field service leaders. Today’s B2C and B2B customers expect proactive communication and transparency throughout the customer journey.
Localz helps businesses to meet these needs with real-time updates and ETA tracking on the day of an appointment. But the field service customer journey doesn’t end when an operative arrives on site.
Rate My Experience is a post-appointment feedback tool that closes the loop after service appointments. Real-time customer surveys provide feedback that’s actionable, representative and accurate.
Keep reading to find out how appointment-based feedback could enhance your service offering.
How does Rate My Experience work?
Rate My Experience is a dynamic and simple way to collect real-time customer feedback immediately following a service appointment. This feedback helps to improve the customer experience and streamline field service operations.
With Localz’ configurable communication workflows, customers receive an SMS as soon as a job is completed. Possible triggers include the technician leaving the job’s defined geofence , or a user updating the job status within the system.
The SMS includes a link to the Manage My Appointments customer portal. The portal is web-based, so there’s no need for customers to download an app.
Within the portal, the customer can quickly and easily rate their experience. You can choose to configure emoji, star or number ratings - whichever aligns best with your business.
The rating is followed by the option to submit open-ended text feedback. You can also configure follow-up questions based on the customer’s response.
Feedback data is then stored against the individual job and technician, so it’s easy to see how your team is doing.
To ensure that feedback is actionable, you can set up real-time negative feedback alerts. Management dashboard users can view negative feedback alerts within the dashboard, or you can choose to automatically send an email alert to the appropriate team member.
Use cases for real-time customer feedback
Reduce the need for follow-up calls
In many operations teams, the responsibility falls on customer service staff to request feedback after an appointment. Some companies also rely on third-party survey tools to measure customer satisfaction.
At Welsh Water, schedulers had been tasked with calling customers before and after a job to provide updates and collect feedback. Since implementing Rate My Experience, it’s easy to identify satisfied customers who do not need an additional phone call after the appointment.
Once the job is completed, the customer receives an SMS linking to the web portal, where they can provide feedback and choose whether they would like a follow-up phone call.
Of the customers who provide feedback, 83 per cent use the opportunity to opt out of “close the loop” calls from Welsh Water. This saves customers time and allows support staff to focus resources where they’re needed, resulting in significant operational savings.
Collect more accurate feedback
In the past, technicians were tasked with collecting feedback from customers on site. Inevitably, responses were skewed by the physical presence of the technician.
At the other end of the spectrum, feedback collected days after an appointment is unlikely to be accurate - and customers are more likely to remember negative experiences.
United Living Property Services tackled this problem with automated feedback requests from Localz:
"We are now confident that the customer feedback we receive is an accurate representation of the satisfaction levels. Our new process for gathering feedback is also a better experience for everyone – our tenants feel they can be honest and our engineers have one less job to do."
Jonathan Evans, Business Improvement Manager at ULPS.
Complement Voice of Customer with real-time actionable insight
Today’s service companies know that it’s imperative to listen to customers. NPS and CSAT scores are a top priority, while Voice of Customer platforms are exploding in popularity.
These measures are ideal for measuring overall customer sentiment. But insights are rarely actionable on a case-by-case basis. Feedback isn’t gathered immediately following an appointment, and isn’t linked to specific technicians or jobs.
Rate My Experience fills this gap by collecting customer and operational feedback as soon as an appointment is complete. Real-time alerts allow staff to tackle issues quickly, before they escalate.
Michael Alldridge, Operations Director South West and Wales at HSS Hire, explains:
“Feedback is a game-changer for us and provides a wealth of information. Previously, negative feedback would be directed to a sales colleague and escalated over a matter of weeks. Now, customers get a call from a senior manager within thirty minutes, to see what we can learn from the experience."
Monitor changes to service
Whenever you make a change to operations, it’s important to keep track of customers’ experience.
With Localz, you can configure follow up questions to gain insights that are important to your business. For instance, you might ask customers: “How helpful did you find our new technician tracking service?”
You can change questions regularly to uncover useful intelligence and shape future processes.
“At Clarion we are passionate about continuously improving customer experience. [...] We are already seeing great benefit from receiving real-time feedback from our customers and using this feedback to quickly enhance our service.”
Get started with Rate My Experience
Rate My Experience is an essential part of your field service customer engagement tool kit. The module complements Localz’ customer notifications and ETA tracking solutions by closing the loop after an appointment.
Mobile workforces in housing, property management, asset rental and utilities already benefit from real-time customer feedback. If you’d like to get started, we’d be happy to answer your questions.
