CUSTOMER FEEDBACK ANALYSIS SYSTEM

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK ANALYSIS SYSTEM

ABSTRACT

The aim of this research was to identify the key processes that constitute an optimal feedback process with a keen focus on educational institutions and thereafter implement an integrated (holistic) analysis tool that allows capture and analysis of customer feedback efficiently with the overall aim of improving the service given to customers by aiding decision making based on the reports given.

The output of this research has been the successful implementation of the integrated feedback analysis system at SBS with the successfully incorporation of the historical feedback that existed prior to make visible trends that were earlier unknown. It was established that the system could serve as an aid to the decision making process due to the fact that the top management rated the system very well and through the reports they could quickly identify gaps in terms of information that could be catered for by the reports given by the system such as making decisions based on the performance of the persons or departments in question as informed by the trend. Furthermore, it was clear that the use of online feedback system increased the efficiency of the administrator responsible for the dissemination of feedback since it significantly reduced the time spent on the preparation and distribution of the forms to the students plus the other manual tasks involved in the entire process. Finally, the system ratings were commendable thus signaling the high likelihood of full adoption in the feedback ecosystem of the Strathmore business school and the possible implementations to other institutions of higher learning.

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

The business world has always faced such stiff competition from the external environment and has overcome this challenges by formulating processes and models that are focused on customer retention such as Customer relationship management, this according to Reinartz et al (2004) is a process that should be customer-facing which involves the “building of a single view of the customer across all contact channels and the distribution of customer intelligence to all customer-facing functions. This view stresses the importance of coordinating information on contact channels over time to manage the entire customer relationship systematically.” Feedback by the customer is a key component of the CRM process since the customer will always give their thought on many aspects both on request or randomly e.g. in conversations on various platforms, how the organizations respond to this feedback is critical to the retention of that customer and attraction of new ones.

In view of stiff competition both local and international otganizations can benefit from the application of tested and proved business practices such as CRM and in this case the management of the feedback process to improve the customer satisfaction by fast response to any issues raised and continuously improve their service delivery while doing so. The feedback given by the customer can be on request to them by way of questionnaires or random, in conversation and nowadays mostly on social media thus for total mastery of the art there is a need for the integrated analysis of customer feedback from the various sources using business intelligence techniques and have a management dashboard for visualization.

1.2 Problem Statement

With the proliferation of computer systems for education and social media, there has been a change in the way in which customers  give feedback from being limited to just the forms administered and the suggestion box at the reception but more is on these online platforms. According to Mangold and Faulds (2009) the impact of feedback for example on the business is very significant and can lead to hundreds or even thousands of customers being drawn away from your brand in the case of negative concerns that go unresolved or unnoticed by the organization, also as noted it has significant impact on the Marketing mix with potential for negative and positive outcomes.

Secondly, the current feedback process i.e. how the feedback is carried out in itself is a challenge to the fast response of the mitigation of the issue raised. Feedback is mostly collected as hard copy forms administered in class which have to be manually input onto a processing software tool for analysis, this causes slow delivery and communication of the feedback thus resulting in inefficiency. This spills over leading to slow rate of notifications of the issues raised by the respondents to the respective departments.

Finally, the lack of customer performance monitoring can lead to the perception that the organization does not care about its customers and thus the loss of contact with the customer at a personalized level.

1.3 Aim and Objectives

The aim of this study is to produce a dashboard for integrated organizational customer feedback analysis.

1.4 Objectives

1. To carry out a comprehensive analysis of the current feedback process with an aim of identifying the needs in line with the proposed system.
2. To design the integrated feedback analysis system (IFAS) based on the requirements gathered to provide an organizational dashboard.
3. To implement the IFAS based on the design documents.
4. To carry out an evaluation of the system acceptance and usability by the SBS team.

1.5 Project Justification

A customer today is offered a number of options to give feedback regarding their experience using products or services. Top organizations use this feedback to continually improve their product design or service delivery to make the customer experience more beneficial / enjoyable. In order to produce continual customer service improvements, focus should be given to four areas regarding the student feedback process: capturing, storing, analyzing and acting on feedback.

Customer feedback can be obtained through a variety of channels, such as social media, e-mails, web-based learning systems and online questionnaires. The many different methods require IHL to integrate all sources of student feedback. Lack of integration of the various feedback sources can impede improvement efforts since multiple internal departments collect, report and act on student feedback using separate channels in a silos, lack of timely and complete analysis and sometimes none altogether of feedback, Student sentiment experiences and as expressed via mail message, chatting and telephone, may not be at all or correctly integrated with the quantitative / structured data (Whyte, 2015)

1.6 Scope of The Study

This study which is titled “Customer Feedback Analysis System” is aimed at assessing already existing systems, and creating a system that will bridge the short comings of already existing feedback systems. This study will be limited to customers of tertiary institutions – students.

1.7 Definition of Important Terms

Business Intelligence refers to the “processes, technologies and tools required to turn data into information, information into knowledge and knowledge into plans that drive profitable business action, it encompasses data warehousing, business analytics and knowledge management” (Ariyachandra and Watson, 2014).

Feedback is a generic term which disguises multiple purposes which are often not explicitly acknowledged. The roles given to feedback fall widely into five, but not completely discrete categories; correction, reinforcement, forensic diagnosis, benchmarking and longitudinal development / feed-forward” (Margaret Price et.al,

2010). In this scope it refers to “information presented that allows comparison between an actual outcome and a desired outcome” by students (Poulos and Mahony, 2008).

Customer relationship management is a “set of practices and techniques that provide an integrated view of customers across all business functions to make sure that each customer receives the highest level of service” (Karakostas et al., 2005).

Service delivery in this context refers to the efficient and timely response and mitigation of all raised concerns by the student without neglecting the expected.

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