Why verbatim customer feedback matters in B2B customer experience.
On International Literacy Day, we celebrate the ability to read, write, and understand information. In today’s business world, however, literacy means something more: the ability to interpret data, understand behaviour, and turn insight into action.
For customer experience (CX) professionals, this raises an important question: Are we truly listening to what our customers are telling us?
Organizations today have access to vast amounts of customer data. Metrics such as Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and retention rates provide valuable indicators of performance. They tell us what is happening.
But they rarely tell us why.
That’s where verbatim feedback comes in.
What is verbatim feedback?
Verbatim feedback is the open-text feedback customers provide in surveys, interviews, and interactions. Unlike numerical scores, it allows customers to explain their experiences in their own words.
At Deep-Insight, we refer to this as the “WHY data” because it provides the context behind customer ratings and behaviours.
A customer giving a satisfaction score of 4 (out of 7) might be frustrated by a recent service issue, disappointed with communication, or questioning the overall value of the relationship. The score alone can’t tell you which. The customer’s comments can.
Why verbatim feedback matters
Quantitative data is essential. It helps organizations measure performance, track trends, and benchmark results. However, numbers don’t capture emotions, motivations, or expectations.
Verbatim feedback helps organizations:
Understand the drivers of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction
Identify root causes behind declining scores
Detect emerging issues before they become bigger problems
Prioritize improvements that matter most to customers
Uncover opportunities for innovation and growth
In short, it transforms data into understanding.
The importance of the “Why” in B2B relationships
For B2B organizations, understanding the “why” is especially important.
Customer relationships are often long-term, involve multiple stakeholders, and can have significant commercial value. A single comment can reveal service gaps, product concerns, relationship challenges, or competitive threats that may otherwise remain hidden within the data.
When relationships are measured in years rather than transactions, understanding customer sentiment is not enough. Organizations need to understand the reasons behind it.
Building Customer Literacy
At Deep-Insight, our Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) methodology combines quantitative measures with qualitative insights to create a more complete picture of the customer experience.
By analysing both customer scores and customer narratives, organizations can identify the factors driving loyalty, advocacy, retention, and growth.
This is customer literacy in practice: not simply collecting information, but understanding it deeply enough to make better decisions.
A final thought
As AI and analytics continue to evolve, businesses will have more data than ever before. The challenge will not be obtaining information—it will be understanding it.
On International Literacy Day, it’s worth remembering that the most valuable insights often come directly from the customer voice.
Because while metrics tell us what is happening, verbatim feedback tells us why.
And the organizations that understand the why will be best positioned to build stronger customer relationships, make smarter decisions, and create better experiences.
Want to learn more about the Deep-Insight CRQ methodology? Discover how combining customer metrics with verbatim feedback can help you uncover the WHY behind your data and speak with us today:
There is no denying that the workplace has changed dramatically over the past few years. International Youth Day is a good reminder that not only big events such as pandemics shape our work environments but also that younger generations are reshaping what people expect from work.
For many young professionals today, having a job is about more than just earning a salary. They want to work for organizations that feel authentic, offer flexibility, and provide opportunities to learn, develop, and grow. While pay and benefits remain important, they are no longer the only factors influencing employee satisfaction and loyalty.
Many younger employees also place a greater emphasis on wellbeing, diversity, sustainability, and having a sense of purpose in their work. Workplace culture matters more than ever, and people are paying close attention to how organizations treat their employees—not just what they say publicly.
As Millennials and Gen Z continue to make up a larger proportion of the workforce, organizations are being challenged to rethink traditional approaches to employee engagement. Expectations are evolving quickly, and assumptions about what employees want are no longer enough.
The question for employers is simple: Do we really understand what matters most to our people?
This is where listening becomes critical.
At Deep-Insight, we believe that understanding employee experience starts with measuring it. Our Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ) methodology helps organizations gain a clearer picture of the relationship between employees and employers by measuring key areas such as trust, engagement, communication, leadership, and overall workplace experience. We also thrive to understand things that are crucial in todays workplace such as work life balance.
These insights help organizations identify what younger employees value most and where improvements are needed. Whether it’s creating more flexibility, strengthening communication, supporting wellbeing, or providing clearer career development opportunities, understanding employee expectations is becoming increasingly important for attracting and retaining talent.
The best workplaces are not built on assumptions. They are built on listening, understanding, and acting on employee feedback.
This International Youth Day, organizations have an opportunity to reflect on an important question:
Are we creating a workplace where the next generation wants to stay, contribute, and build their careers?
The answer starts by listening.
Learn more about Deep-Insight’s Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ) methodology and how employee feedback can help create a stronger, more engaged workforce.
Every year on Moon Day, we celebrate one of humanity’s arguably greatest achievements: landing on the moon.
But before the giant leap came years of observation, analysis, testing, and learning. Progress wasn’t driven by action alone—it was driven by understanding.
There is an important lesson here for businesses.
In today’s fast-moving environment, organizations often feel pressure to react quickly. New strategies, new products, new initiatives. Yet the most successful companies know when to pause, reflect, and listen before deciding their next move.
Customer feedback provides that moment of reflection.
Customer satisfaction scores can show where performance is changing, while customer comments reveal the experiences, expectations, and concerns behind the numbers. Together, they help organizations understand not just what is happening, but why.
At Deep-Insight, we see the most effective businesses using customer feedback as their mission control—guiding decisions, identifying opportunities, and helping leaders navigate uncertainty with confidence.
Just as every successful space mission depends on accurate data, every successful customer strategy depends on understanding the customer voice.
So, before taking your next giant leap, take a moment to pause, reflect, and listen.
Your customers may already be telling you where to go next.
At Deep-Insight, our CRQ methodology helps organizations turn customer feedback into clear direction and smarter decisions. Because every great journey starts with understanding. Get in touch with us to learn more.
The past 24 months have been a turning point at Deep-Insight. Behind the scenes, we’ve completely rethought the way in which we deliver customer experience (CX) insights to our customers in the B2B space. As a result, we now have a (significantly) faster, more agile and more intelligent approach to enable you to understand your customers.
In 2024, we decided to re-establish the Product Management role within our organisation as a core strategic function. This was not just an internal shift, it was done as a direct response to a crystal clear message that we received from our clients:
Act faster to deliver even sharper insights.
Our customer’s feedback: the driving force behind our transformation
We’ve used your feedback as a driving force for all the changes we’ve made recently. Over the past 1-2 years we have worked closely with B2B leaders and conducted a series of in-depth interviews to really understand how they envision the customer experience landscape changing in the future. Our findings were consistent:
Businesses need real-time, actionable CX insights
Agility is no longer optional, but critical
Legacy tools are holding teams back
We took this feedback and advice seriously – and we acted on it.
What we’ve improved: CX platform innovations
As a result of everything we learned, we decided to first review the technical capabilities of the tools we were using. We wanted to relay the foundation on which we run our programmes and such we implemented the following:
A faster, more intuitive survey experience, providing respondents with:
A clean, modern interface
Simplified navigation between questions
Faster overall response time
The result? The same reliable customer feedback data but delivered with less friction.
The introduction of Deep-Dive Studio – our new CX analytics platform
This has to be the biggest leap forward that we’ve taken in years. This powerful analytical dashboard is specifically designed for understanding B2B customer experience insights. With this new platform, we have unlocked:
Real-time access to completion rates during the live survey period
Faster, flexible insight generation
Advanced analysis for in-depth understanding
AI-powered sentiment analysis
It helps us and our customers with actionable outputs for both account level changes as well as driving organisational strategy. In short, it transforms raw data into decision-ready intelligence.
Greater flexibility and customisation for complex B2B environments
No two B2B organisations are the same, and your CX tools shouldn’t be either. In the past, we used rigid tools, but that period has come to an end. Our new technology allows us to:
Adapt to bespoke client requests
Go beyond our standard frameworks
Respond quickly to the evolving market conditions
All in all, this means that you get a CX programme tailored to your business, not a one-size-fits-all model.
Why this matters for CX leaders
If you are responsible for CX in a B2B environment, you are likely feeling an ever-increasing pressure to:
Demonstrate return on investment (ROI) from CX
Deliver insights faster
Ensure feedback is aligned with strategic decisions
We have designed our transformation with this in mind and can help you from moving from data collection into driving real impactful change.
What’s next?
This is just the beginning. Our product team is committed to continuous improvement – testing, learning and evolving alongside our clients. You can expect further innovation as we continue on this journey to push the boundaries of what is possible at Deep-Insight when it comes to B2B customer experience management.
Get involved in our journey
If you’d like to:
See our new CX tools in action
Explore how CRQ and Deep-Dive Studio can support your business
New Product Launch: Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ)
Deep-Insight is delighted to launch a new Voice of the Employee service, specifically aimed at companies with 100-500 staff: Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ™).
Why 100-500 staff?
Our research shows that most companies with 1,000 or more employees have systems in place for capturing the voices of both employees and customers. That’s not the case for mid-market companies, specifically those with 100-500 employees, where many companies have no mechanism for understanding what their staff think of them.
This is a product launch that has been a couple of years in planning, and has involved a significant amount or research and discussion with HR professionals across Europe. We would specifically like to thank the following for their time and input:
Setting Up An Effective Employee Feedback Programme
So how do we set up and run an effective employee feedback programme?
Let’s start with a few basics:
Confidentiality. An effective employee feedback programme must be confidential so that employees can feel safe to speak openly and honestly. At the same time, it must deliver the level of detail and clarity required for leadership to drive meaningful change.
Methodology. We need to measure the right things for today’s employees. Today’s workplace is different – more remote working, less job security, greater tendency to ‘job hop’ and so on – and we need to reflect these changes in the work environment in the questions that we ask.
Frequency. All of our research suggests that the big annual employee survey is no longer enough. At a minimum, get feedback twice a year, or supplement an annual survey with more frequent pulse surveys on specific topics.
Deep-Insight has been capturing the voice of the employee for years but is now launching a new offering aimed specifically at this 100-500 employee market: Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ™).
ERQ is an independent and confidential way of getting employee insights that help you drive customer experience (CX) in your organisation. The ERQ model is based on eight drivers and takes into consideration the challenges of today’s world and aims to understand if your teams are set up for success. For example, it takes a close look at employees’ Wellbeing by measuring if they can maintain a sustainable work-life balance and if they feel a sense of job security. It also adds includes questions around Success and Support.
These eight drivers are all critical components of the current-day employee relationship.
The Eight Drivers of Employee Relationship Quality
Today’s employer-employee relationships can be complex, so we need to analyse how well we are doing on eight different dimensions:
BENEFITS aims to understand if you as an organisation are meeting your employee’s basic needs. It looks at the following sub-drivers: Pay and Opportunities.
SUPPORT aims to understand if you are offering your employees the required guidance and training to do their job. It looks at the following sub-drivers: Onboarding, Development and Environment.
SUCCESS looks at if your employees have the tools required to do their job and if they feel a sense of agency over their role. Sub-drivers of success are: Agency and Satisfaction.
WELLBEING aims to understand if your employees are satisfied with the work-life balance provided and if they feel a sense of teamwork and appreciation. It’s sub-drivers are: Work-Life Balance, Collaboration and Job-Security.
CULTURE aims to understand if you provide your employees with a respectful and safe working environment. The sub-drivers of culture are: Safety, Respect and Inclusion.
TRUST aims to understand if your employees feel a sense of trust and if they feel like they are being treated fairly, with honesty and integrity. The sub-drivers are: Honesty, Integrity and Fairness.
COMMITMENT looks to understand if your employees feel proud to be a part of your organisation and a sense of loyalty to stay with you long-term. The sub-drivers are Pride and Loyalty.
CUSTOMER FOCUS aims to understand if your employees see your organisation as one that puts its customers first. The sub-drivers are Customer Care, Reliability and Responsiveness.
Interested?
If you would like to set up an Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ) programme, we’d love to talk!
