Make Every Action Yours
Your customer feedback tells you what to do next. Turn it into a clear action plan, put that plan into practice, and you'll see the difference in revenue, retention and loyalty.
That's a brilliant place to start. And there's one extra step that makes every action in that plan work even harder for your business.
Shape each action around what makes you, you. Your brand promise, your people, your history and the relationships you've built with your customers. Do that and you get the most from your whole feedback program.
Your action plan is the starting point
An action plan that comes straight from your customer feedback is gold. It points you at what matters most to your customers, based on what they've actually told you. No guessing.
Your feedback can't tell you everything about you, though. It doesn't know your brand promise, the reputation you've spent years building or what your team does better than anyone. You do.
So once you've got your plan, ask one more question of each action: "How can we do this in a way that's uniquely us?"
Same action, two businesses
Picture two growing businesses. Both hear the same thing from customers: "It takes too long to get an answer." Both action plans rightly say: respond to customer queries more quickly.
The first is an accountancy firm with offices across the region. Clients have dealt with the same partner for years. So it gives every client a named person who owns their query and tells them exactly when they'll hear back.
The second is a fast-growing home services company. Customers choose it because it's quick and easy. So it offers instant answers online and a simple way to track progress.
Same action. Same goal. But each one feels unmistakably like the business delivering it, and that's what makes customers value it even more.
Why tailoring pays off
Putting your own stamp on each action isn't just about style. Customers feel it more, competitors can't easily copy it and your team find it easier to deliver. So every action does more for retention, referrals and repeat business.
Seven ways to make every action yours
Take each action in your plan and run it through these seven tips.
- Start with your promise. What do you want customers to feel when they deal with you? Deliver the action in a way that gives them more of that.
- Get to what's behind the feedback. "Customer service is slow" might mean customers want a definite answer, fewer handovers or simply to know someone's on it. Check with customers and your team which matters most.
- Ask the people closest to customers. Your front-line team often know exactly how to make an action work in practice. Build on what already works.
- Use what you're already great at. Your expertise, your relationships, your know-how. A specialist advice firm might deliver faster answers by putting clients straight through to an expert who can solve the problem first time.
- Protect what customers already love. Look at what scores highest in your feedback and keep it front and centre. A hotel group can speed up check-in with online pre-arrival registration and still keep the warm, personal welcome its guests come back for.
- Add something only you could offer. What would competitors do with the same action? Add the touch they'd struggle to match.
- Start with the action that matters most. Your plan already shows you where to focus. Tailor one action at a time, starting with the one that'll make the biggest difference to customers and the business.
Good action, even better action
Here's how that looks in practice. Each action is already the right thing to do. The tailored version makes it yours.
- Respond to queries faster. Made yours: give every customer a named person who owns their query and a clear time for their answer.
- Improve communication. Made yours: talk the way your brand talks, and answer questions before customers need to ask them.
- Make things easier for customers. Made yours: use your know-how to spot what they'll need next and cut out the steps they don't.
- Handle complaints better. Made yours: treat every slip as a chance to show fairness, ownership and care.
These are examples, not rules. The right version depends on your business.
Try this: the "Make it ours" exercise
Set aside a morning or an afternoon. Once your team get into it, the discussion is where much of the value comes from, so don't rush it. Pick one action from your plan. Get a small group together: someone senior, someone from the front line and someone who knows the numbers. Then work through five questions.
- What's the action, and what feedback sits behind it? Read a few comments in the customer's own words.
- What makes us different? Think about your brand, your history, your story and your relationships with customers. What would your longest-standing customers say you're known for?
- What strengths can we bring? Skills, people, expertise, tools, partners. Which could deliver this action in a way that's distinctly ours?
- What should this do for the business? More repeat customers, more referrals, fewer chasing calls, less wasted time. Pick one or two.
- How will we know it's working? Choose one simple measure for customers (a feedback score or a comment theme), one for the team (how often queries are solved first time) and one for the business (repeat business or referrals).
Then finish with one sentence everyone can sign up to:
"We will [action], in a way that [what makes us us], so that [business result]. We'll know it's working when [measure]."
Here's what that might look like for our accountancy firm:
"We will respond to queries faster by giving every client a named contact who owns their query, building on the personal service we've been known for since we opened our first office, so that more clients stay with us year after year. We'll know it's working when 'hard to get an answer' drops out of our feedback and renewals go up."
Same action as the plan. Delivered in a way only this firm could.
Keep testing, keep listening
An action plan isn't finished when the tasks are ticked off. Try your tailored action, listen to customers and your team, and adjust.
Decide up front who will review the results and when. When something works, make it part of how you always do things.
Your next round of feedback will tell you how well each action landed, and it'll refresh your plan with what to focus on next.
Start with what your customers tell you
With iAssistYU, you don't have to build the plan from scratch. Holly, our AI customer experience expert, analyses your customer feedback automatically and gives you a short action plan, usually three to five next steps depending on what your feedback shows, designed to turn feedback into revenue, retention and loyalty.
Put those steps into practice and you're already ahead. Run each one through the exercise above and you'll get the most out of every action.
Because the strongest actions don't just respond to customers. They strengthen what makes your business worth choosing.
Start listening to every customer with iAssistYU at iAssistYU.com.
About iAssistYU
iAssistYU is an AI-powered, self-serve customer feedback platform built for growing, multi-location businesses. It integrates with your CRM and accounting software in minutes, so you can start turning customer feedback into action straight away.