Designing Information Systems to Support Customer Feedback: an Organizational Message System Perspective

Because technological and feature advantages are short-lived, service after the sale is emerging as an important source of competitive advantage. One way for an organization to differentiate itself from its competitors on the basis of service is the way the organization handles customer feedback. However, before customer feedback can provide competitive advantage or even serve as a basis for decision support, the incoming messages must be captured and routed to the appropriate decision makers in the organization. This paper explores issues related to the design of information systems to support customer feedback from an organizational information processing perspective. After developing the position that all transaction processing systems are in fact organizational message systems, the paper reviews the logistical properties associated with three approaches for customer feedback systems based on the nature of the transaction processing activity associated with each approach: structured (comment cards), semi-structured (toll-free telephone lines), and unstructured (mail). Trade-offs between efficiency and information richness, and the potential roles for information technology are described for the three approaches. The paper concludes by describing the potential relationship between product attributes and the design of customer feedback systems.