Which Consumers Give The Most Feedback?

September 13, 2011 4 Comments

In a previous post, I examined how often consumers gave feedback directly to more than 140 companies. The post raised questions about why some industries seem to have different feedback patterns than others. So I went back to the data in the report How Consumers Give Feedback to Companies and looked at this same data by consumer age groups.

A few observations from the data:

  • 35 to 44 year-olds are the most likely to give direct feedback to companies and the level of feedback drops for both older and younger consumers
  • 18 to 24 year-olds are the least likely to give direct feedback to companies, but they give the most balanced feedback across good and bad experiences
  • Companies that serve 30 to 50 year-olds are the most likely to get feedback directly from their customers
  • All age groups are more likely to give negative feedback than positive feedback

The bottom line: You need to find other ways to hear from younger consumers and to account for the negative bias in feedback

Filed under Customer Connectedness, Customer experience

About Bruce Temkin, CCXP
I'm an experience (XM) management catalyst; helping organizations improve results by engaging the hearts and minds of their employees, customers, and partners. I enjoy researching and speaking about these topics. I lead the Qualtrics XM Institute, which is the world's best job. We're igniting a global community of XM Professionals who are inspired and empowered to radically improve the human experience. To achieve this goal, my team focuses on thought leadership, training, and community building. My work is driven by a set of fundamental beliefs: 1) Everything starts and ends with human beings, so you need to understand how people think, feel, and behave; 2) XM is a discipline that needs to be woven throughout an organization's entire operating fabric; and 3) Building the XM discipline requires a combination of culture, competency, and technology.

4 Responses to Which Consumers Give The Most Feedback?

  1. Joy Levin says:
    September 15, 2011 at 9:49 am

    Yes, this has been a challenge to researchers for many years. One solution we’ve used is to “weight” feedback responses based on demographics. And of course, social media provides new opportunities as well to hear from younger consumers.

    Joy Levin
    Allium Research and Analytics

    Be A Marketing Hero

    Reply
  2. kimberly nasief (@MeasureCP) says:
    September 22, 2011 at 9:30 am

    I would be interested in seeing how this data shifts in the next year with the increasing amount of businesses moving their surveying to mobile (via WAP and SMS). Our experience is that response rates increase exponentially when you add mobile as an option. Further, positive feedback outweighs the negative feedback. What are your thoughts on that?

    Reply
    • Bruce Temkin says:
      September 23, 2011 at 7:06 am

      Hi Kimberly: We plan to keep tracking this data, so we will have some trending early next year. I haven;t seen any data yet about the negative/positive breakdown of mobile feedback. But I’ll be interested in tracking it as the mobile feedback channel grows. Thanks for sharing.

      Reply

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