Paradigm Shift in Customer Experience Management

I was in no mood to stay back and argue. But when I noticed a feedback kiosk with some smileys in one corner near the exit gate, I was curious. I simply typed in my mobile number and clicked a FAIR smiley as my feedback. Then I took the vehicle and started coming back home.

I had not even moved out of the gate when I received a call on my mobile. To my surprise, it was a call from their supervisor. He politely checked why I had given an average and what he can do to resolve the issue. When he came to know about the wash quality, he immediately took the vehicle back and ensured that it was done properly, and returned it to me.

As a journalist covering CX and Technology trends, I was becoming even more curious.

I had always thought that these feedback kiosks are not really attended to and that the data collected is used in their internal review and presentations rather than actual issue resolution.

When I started casually enquiring more about the process, the supervisor told me that they had installed a smiley feedback product called MPulse which is recommended by their Head Office. And that whenever the customer is giving less than satisfactory feedback, the supervisor is alerted instantly through an SMS or a WhatsApp message. This enables them to intervene in a few minutes to resolve the issue. This is helping them ensure that every customer who leaves their premises is satisfied.

The best part about the product is that when a customer gives Good Feedback, he/she receives a thank you message with the dealers' google review link. When a customer is satisfied, he/she is more likely to give a good rating on Google. And especially since the thank you message is instantaneous, the memory of the service experience is fresh in the customer's mind. And chances of them increasing their reviews on Google are very high.

In order to get more details about the product MPulse, we got in touch with their Founder, Gopal M Seetharaman. He had built this product from scratch in the last 3-4 years. He further says " In International markets, smiley devices are very common. Happy-or-Not and FeedbackNow are very popular brands overseas. But there are no good products in that space, even though there is a strong need. Every segment in the industry from retailers, service centers, restaurants to hospitals and diagnostic centers have a strong need to capture customer feedback and it is better if it is instant."

Another valid point he makes is that the customer's memory of the service experience is fresh when he is inside our premises. So the feedback has to be captured then and there. And the feedback mechanism has to be simple because customers hate surveys.

Mpulse has been chosen for feedback data collection for many brands including Narayana Health City, TVS Motors, Hero MotoCorp, BlueStar, and many more. They also work extensively with Swachh Bharat Mission and Smart City projects to capture feedback about civic facilities.