You are dedicated to understand the client experience on your buying journeys. You ask your clients for feedback to learn where you need to improve, you have your touchpoints defined.

You want to “deliver WOW through service” (like Zappos´adorable famous #1 core value) – but is there such thing as overdoing the focus on your client? Or in other words – what happens when you, despite your best intentions, destroy the experience by being too pushy asking for feedback?

Let me tell you a little story :

We have bought a new, stylish and expensive side-by-side fridge , one of these chrome-shining high-end household appliances with water and ice dispensers from a well known South-Korean brand. After 6 months of enjoying the new fridge it started to become quite noisy – specifically when we opened the door with the Ice dispenser.

I called the customer service department – this experience on the phone was outstanding – the agent was polite, on the spot, helpful and fast and gave me a time-range when the technical support would come visit me. A day before the actual repair date on site I obtained a text message indicating that the technician would arrive in the afternoon not in the morning as agreed on the phone. So I called the customer service again – and arrived with another agent who reassured to me that despite the text message indicating the repair date would be on the afternoon next day , she has the date registered in her system in the morning and she checked with the repair service as well – the technician would arrive in the morning.

Come next day – I wait until an hour before the morning slot is over – and call the customer service again. I catch the first – helpful – agent from my first call – I recognize his voice – and I ask him when the technician would arrive at my home in the morning. He checks in the system again – and guess what the date range for my onsite visit has “magically” moved to the afternoon hours – the helpful agent assured he remembered we had agreed on the early morning hours, that he is sorry but he cannot do anything about it. Well – you can imagine I was not too pleased as I had arranged for a few meetings in the afternoon that I needed to move then. I was very angry at the 2nd agent who apparently told me something wrong but equally so was again impressed by the initial agent how well he handled my disappointment and anger.

A few hours passed by and the technician arrived – I was still a bit unhappy with the fact he arrived later then I expected him but the professional and calm way he handled the required repairs and replacements was really impressing me and created an excellent client experience for me. He left me as a really satisfied client.

A day later I obtained a text message on my phone indicating that my repair was finished and giving me a number to call if I have questions. Yet another day later another text message arrived with the request to provide feedback on my experience that I ignored as I was busy. 4 days later the third text message asked for my feedback and guess what 7 days later I was called by a callcenter agent if I would like to give feedback on my experience.

Was that too much? For me personally – and I am genuinely interested in the Client Experience topic – it was definitly overdoing it.

One could say that I could have raised the things that went wrong on the scheduling and the unapropriate agent advise but I was too busy and I just did not feel like it as it felt unpersonal giving the feedback to the text message survey and I did not feel like giving the feedback on the phone either.

So to answer my question at the start – yes indeed you can overdo things and can destroy a great experience by being too pushy to request for feedback or by asking for feedback in the wrong moment of a client journey.

When or how would I had felt more open and willing to give feedback?

• Make collecting feedback personal & instantaneous: I would have loved to give the technician immediate feedback – eg on his tab.

• Give a headsup and explain why the survey is important: Prepare your client: I would have been more willing to give feedback when I would have been asked personally if I could respond in case I get a request for survey. On top it would have helped as well to understand what the company is doing with the client feedback – is it just to generate a KPI or is it used with the genuine interest to restlessly improve future experience.

• Accept an (even implicit) no: I deliberately did not react on the 2 requests for survey feedback sent to me in text messages. When I was called and asked for feedback it was really overdoing it and generated the feeling of anger and “being chased down” , I felt cornered and I really dislike this feeling which ultimately overlapped all positive nuances of my experience along this client journey.

• Never forget to put yourself in your clients´shoes. Imagine you are your client – when would you like to be asked to give feedback on your journey experience? Treat your client how you would like to be treated.

Take a moment and think! Do you find similarities with your own client experience deployment?