New Channel 4 Undercover Boss series highlights feedback management failure in British businesses

The new Channel 4 Undercover Boss series shows senior management “getting under the skin” of their own firms - anonymously - to get real world insight into how the business is being run at the frontline. But are they - and many other businesses - missing a trick when it comes to keeping their finger on the pulse of their customers and employees, asks www.managemycomplaints.com (MMC)?

Bosses from Ann Summers, Southern Fried Chicken and Isuzu Trucks are discovering that there is a lot of unknown insight and feedback to be captured from both customers and employees.

According to Andrew Withers, Managing Director of Southern Fried Chicken: “customers don’t complain, they just don’t come back”. But perhaps they would complain if they felt they would be heard - and if staff had a means of capturing complaints and easily feeding this back to head office.

Commenting on the programme, MMC’s Andrew Aldred says: “The Undercover Boss series highlights the importance not only of capturing customer feedback but internal employee feedback as well. It is ironic that it takes a senior executive working anonymously to uncover what really happens at the sharp end. As a long term business strategy, it doesn’t scale.

“However, there are ways for businesses to be able to capture both customer and employee feedback far more efficiently and cost effectively. Feedback management systems can allow employees at the frontline to capture any and all customer complaints and feedback and give senior management far greater insight into vital issues that have a direct impact on the business. This is not a costly strategic initiative. From only £55 month, businesses of any size can start to exploit staff and customer insight immediately.”

Continues Aldred: “Most businesses prefer that complaints and feedback are dealt with at a local level. Of course, it makes perfect sense to the business to manage complaints and feedback this way. However, the reality is that complaints and feedback are rarely logged or reported back up to head office.

“Add to this that no manager wants to promote the fact that he or she has the 'worst' store or department for customer service then complaints and feedback will always remain hidden. By using a feedback management system like MMC, businesses could give front line staff the means to provide proper evidence to head office about the things that really do matter to customers as well as justifying their recommendations - which often go unheeded by senior management.”

The result, according to managemycomplaints.com, is that companies can never really be sure of the true scale of their problems and what the impact on the business is.

Managemycomplaints.com is the first specialist customer complaint and feedback management application delivered using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. The cloud-based service enables all organisations to capture, manage and analyse complaints and feedback to improve customer satisfaction, increase customer service efficiency, and drive business improvements.

To help businesses get started, managemycomplaints.com has published a free guide on Where To Collect And Welcome Customer Feedback.

Call now on 0845 5 211 777, or e-mail: info@managemycomplaints.com for a free trial.