What is survey "launch data" and how does it matter?

One of the big advantages of using LoyaltyLoop is the fact that your feedback and review service is fully managed by the pros at LoyaltyLoop. This means you can focus on using the results to grow your business, while relying on us to do the heavy lifting behind the scenes, like:

• Managing changes to your survey (questions, logic, appearance)
• Managing changes to your survey request emails and text messages (SMS)
• Managing changes to your service configuration and business rules
• Managing the survey launch data and pre-launch processing rules
• And more

This removes the need for you or your team to manage elements of a feedback process that can be complicated, confusing, or require skills you don't have. A great example of this is the management of your launch data and pre-launch processing rules.

When your service is configured by our team, a key element of executing surveys is the formation of the correct contact data of the customers to be surveyed. This contact data usually comes from your back office transaction system, and may include a variety of fields. At a minimum, it must include either the email address or mobile number of the customer with whom you did business. Generally speaking, this data should also include fields like first name, and other contact details, to make emails more personalized, and arm you and your team with contact details when viewing responses or alerts.

Photo by Andy Hermawan on Unsplash

This data is your "raw" launch data. Raw, in that it has yet to be processed into your actual "launch list" of customers to be surveyed. If you are not using one of our integrations or automations to flow your raw launch data into your LoyaltyLoop, you should explore this great capability. Using an integration streamlines your feedback process by automatically flowing your raw launch data to LoyaltyLoop. There are no lists to create or export, no need to upload them to LoyaltyLoop, it all happens automatically. Not only is it automatic, but it also puts you in position to have your LoyaltyLoop engage customers soon after they experienced your business. If you are required to export and upload data, chances are you're doing this infrequently as it requires manual work. Asking for feedback closer to when the customer experiences your business, generally increases both the quantity and quality of feedback/reviews.

Now that we understand where the raw launch data comes from, and what it typically looks like, let's talk about why your launch data matters. The first thing to understand is LoyaltyLoop doesn't just send surveys to everyone in your raw launch data. You may have repeat customers who have recently been surveyed, and you may have specific rules governing which customers should be surveyed. Let's look at both groups individually:

1. Repeat Customers

No one wants to receive requests for feedback too often. If you have repeat customers, asking them for feedback after every purchase may not be what you want. If it is, no problem. But if it isn't, it is also no problem. By default, LoyaltyLoop will configure a Touch Frequency Filter which prevents "over-touching" the same customer. It works like this. You set the window in which asking a repeat customer would be considered too frequent. By default, we set the window to 90-days (but you can choose any value, including 0). During launch, if LoyaltyLoop has engaged that customer (per their email address) within the prior 90-days, LoyaltyLoop skips that customer on this survey launch.

2. Business Rules

There are a variety of business rules that may be applicable to your specific business. Relative to your raw launch data, business rules help define the list of customers to be surveyed. Here are a few examples of rules we might build around your raw launch data.

• Isolating data: Your raw launch data includes a variety of transactions, yet only some type or types of transactions are applicable to your survey. Working with you, our team would identify the correct field in your raw data that determines the "transaction type", and then build a rule for your account to isolate the correct data.

• Splitting data: Your LoyaltyLoop may be configured to engage customers at various touchpoints in their journey with your business. For example, your raw launch data may include both quotes to new prospects, and sales to customers. Or, you may transact with customers for new equipment sales, service sales, and support tickets. Our team will identify the correct field that isolates the touchpoint, then build the rules needed to parse the data into the appropriate set, and feed it to your appropriate survey (e.g. splitting one data feed into 3 data feeds for equipment, service and tickets, feeding each data set to the appropriate survey).

• Combining data: You may transact with customers using multiple systems. Assuming you do not need to isolate feedback from each source, the data would need to be combined and fed to a single survey. Our team will build a rule to combine the raw data, to be treated as if one.

• Filtering data: Your business may be a storefront, yet you may wish to remove customers from your survey if they purchase below a specific dollar amount. Or your data includes the product item purchased, and you wish to isolate feedback requests to just one specific buyer. No problem. Our team figure out the correct fields to us, and will build these rules for your account.

Your raw data dictates how creative we can get when building rules. For example, you may operate multiple locations, but have no obvious field to isolate the data from each. You need the data isolated by location so you can drive Google reviews to both of your Google Business Profiles. Here's a clever solution. If your sales reps are unique per location, we can use the sales rep field in your raw launch data to parse the data by location.

With your rules in place, your raw launch data gets processed by LoyaltyLoop into your final survey launch data. When survey responses are received, all of your launch data is available to you when viewing feedback. This is extremely helpful, as viewing these values adds context to the feedback. For example, if you include the product purchased and the price paid, it can be helpful to know this unhappy customer purchased your new product, or spent 10x what your typical customer spends. Context helps you understand your feedback.

Lastly, your launch data can be used to dynamically set the sender of your feedback requests, and can also be used to roll-up reports in Feedback by Filter, and send alerts and requests dynamically to staff email addresses associated with that specific transaction.

Having the experts at LoyaltyLoop manage your service allows you to get the exact feedback you need, regardless how complicated or involved it is to isolate your data, without the need to figure this out (and manage this process) on your own.