Feedback Dashboard: Reasons Why You Should Be Using One

Whether it’s feedback from your customers, employers or some other stakeholders. If you’re regularly creating and collecting survey feedback from one of these groups, it can quickly become overwhelming trying to manage large volumes of data, unless you have the means to sift through, digest and interpret it effectively. Yet, this is essential if you’re to take the best decisions for your business based on accurate data insights.

So, what’s the answer for making the right data-driven decisions?

Well, that starts with being able to format and present your data in a way that’s simple to understand for everyone who needs access to it, so they can quickly get to its most valuable insights. And while there are a variety of different ways you could potentially do this, by far the most effective and efficient is to create a feedback survey dashboard that can easily display all your data visualisations in a single-pane view.  

In this blog we’ll help you to learn more about feedback dashboards, their key benefits and some valuable use cases. We’ll also provide you with a brief overview of what makes a good feedback survey dashboard.  

What is a feedback dashboard?  

Put simply, a feedback survey dashboard is a method of displaying your survey results as various types of data in a single-pane view. This also includes data such as key performance indicators (KPI)s or other important business metrics that stakeholders might need to view and understand at a glance.

From the use of visualisations like bar charts, column charts, pie charts, line graphs, trend charts and key metric gauge charts, to features like filters and date ranges that enable you to manipulate your data and quickly get to what you need. The highly customisable nature of dashboards means they’re an effective way of displaying and interpreting data related to any survey, vertical or industry.  

Dashboards are ideal for non-technical people as they aggregate data from different sources, making them simpler to read and interpret. And thanks to their many interactive elements, dashboards allow anyone using them to home in on areas of specific interest and better understand them.  

It’s this flexibility and performance that makes dashboards so important in helping organisations make better, more informed, data-driven decisions.  

Benefits of feedback dashboards  

Feedback survey dashboards offer a range of benefits for those organisations who’ve chosen to implement them.

Here are the key benefits that feedback dashboards can bring to your business.  

You know how your business is performing day-to-day

From the quality of your customer service and support teams to the performance of your product and development teams, and more. For managers and their teams, the data presented in your feedback dashboards can give you a better idea of how your business is performing day-to-day.

Through utilising dashboard visualisation tools, your managers can receive timely updates about important metrics, that helps them to make any necessary adjustments to their business operations to achieve better results.  

Improves data accuracy

When you’re able to collect and analyse your data in the same tool, you’ll naturally reduce your risk of errors or inconsistencies. This is because you no longer need to manually export or import data, which by default can result in data silos and mistakes.

With the ability to run surveys and analyse responses directly within your dashboard in real time, you should be able to uncover your key insights much quicker.  

Saves time

In contrast to spending hours searching through survey reports and specific survey questions when you need information on key metrics or data, with dashboards everything is stored in a central location.  

So, rather than having to switch between different platforms, you can now find everything in one tool, streamlining your processes and saving you valuable time.  

Helps your decision-making

From getting a clear breakdown of your important metric scores, both in real-time and over a selected date range, to seeing the ongoing sentiment of your customers. Having relevant and timely information in a single dashboard tool, makes it easier to spot developing issues and new opportunities, so you’re able to take better decisions and actions as a result.  

Use cases for feedback survey dashboards

Having learnt a bit about feedback survey dashboards, the sorts of information they display and their benefits, it’s useful to know what’s sorts of survey dashboards your organisation may need and how it might look.  

So, given that customer and employee surveys are among the most popular survey activities that an organisation will typically run, we will look at the examples of a customer and an employee feedback survey dashboard.  

Customer feedback survey dashboard

When it comes to customer feedback dashboards, they’re typically used by customer service, support or success teams to monitor, manage and analyse different metrics and KPIs. These can be related to a range of different areas such as customer satisfaction, engagement, loyalty and effort, as well as analysing their own teams’ performance in working to improve the overall customer experience.

Subsequently, to help support this activity, a customer feedback survey dashboard will typically display the following elements.  

Key metric scores

Depending on the type of surveys and metric score questions you’re running, your dashboard could provide ongoing and historic data for NPS, CSAT and CES scores, displaying this information in the form of metric gauge and trend line charts.

Feedback to key questions using different chart types

Again, depending on what specific questions you might be looking to focus on from your customer surveys, you might choose from a range of graphs, pie or bar charts to display your results.  

For example, you might select a bar chart to provide a top-level overview of your customers’ ongoing satisfaction with your support team’s performance, offering a breakdown of their satisfaction levels from very satisfied to very dissatisfied.  

Sentiment analysis for open-ended questions

It’s likely that in order to obtain more insight about your customer concerns or what they would like to see more of, you’ll also want to display their ongoing feedback to a few open-ended questions.  

Fortunately, if you have access to sentiment analysis tools, you’ll also have a more effective way of monitoring these comments. By automatically tagging open text question responses, sentiment analysis allows you to quickly identify good, bad or neutral comment, so you can more easily spot the most urgent issues you should be addressing before they become more harmful to your business.  

Filters to compare customer feedback for different locations and teams

Typically, even if your business doesn’t have multiple branch locations, it’s likely that you’ll have several different teams working to help your customers.  

Thanks to the filtering tools that are available with most dashboard software, you’ll be able to isolate the data from individual locations and teams. Then using a range of different chart types to present your data, you’ll quickly be able to get an ongoing breakdown of how well different teams are performing in meeting your customers’ needs.

Employee feedback survey dashboard

Similarly, to how a customer dashboard can help you better meet customer needs, an employee feedback survey dashboard can help your HR and management teams, to better monitor, manage and analyse different metrics and KPIs related to your employee experience.  

As a result, an effective employee feedback survey dashboard will typically include the following elements.  

Key metric scores

Although this will depend on the types of surveys and metric score questions you’re running, your dashboard could include data on anything from your Employee Satisfaction Score (ESAT) to your Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) and Employee Effort Score (EES) metrics. This data would be typically displayed in the form of metric gauge and trend line charts.

Using different chart types to display your survey feedback

Although, this will be determined by the questions you choose to focus on from your employee surveys, you may select from a range of graphs, pie or bar charts to display your results.

For example, you may choose a pie chart to give you a top-level overview of your employees' engagement levels, offering a breakdown ranging from highly engaged to highly disengaged.  

Sentiment analysis for open-ended questions

Similar to customer surveys, there will be times when you need your staff to elaborate on their concerns or share their ideas with you, which open-ended questions are ideal for.  

The great thing if you have sentiment analysis tools with your dashboard, is that it will give you an excellent way of monitoring this ongoing comment. Once again, you’ll be able to tag your open text question responses based on whether they're good, bad or neutral comments, so you’re more quickly able to identify and address the most damaging sentiments for the benefit of your employees and your business.

Filters to compare staff feedback by different departments and teams

Whatever employee surveys you’re running, it’s useful to be able to compare the views of different department and teams. This is because opinions and sentiment can sometimes vary, given the different types of roles and working conditions staff from different departments and teams may be experiencing.  

Fortunately, filtering tools are available with most dashboard software, enabling you to isolate data from individual departments and teams. By combining this with different chart types to present your data, you’ll quickly be able to see where there’s any major differences or areas of concern that you need to address.

What makes a good feedback dashboard?

Whatever feedback survey dashboard you end up creating and whatever stakeholder audience it’s targeting, it’s crucial that it performs well and is effective for your needs. This is important, because if it’s not set up in the right way or doesn’t contain the right elements, it will be harder to uncover the most interesting insights or obtain the data clarity you need. Ironically these are some of the key reasons why you would have invested in a dashboard tool in the first place,  

So, what aspects of a feedback dashboard can help ensure it performs well and effectively?  

Well, we’ve listed some key points to guide you with this below.

User-friendly operation

It goes without saying, that when you need to pull data from lots of surveys into a single dashboard, you’ll want that tool to be really simple to navigate and use.  

Whoever’s using it will want to swiftly get up to speed with the information displayed and quickly get to the data that matters most to them. So, you need to ensure that whatever dashboard software you’re looking at, it offers a simple, clutter-free design with a good colour contrast, an easy-to-use-menu and customisable buttons and icons that you can easily understand and activate.

Good layout and customisable tools

Given the volume and range of data and charts you may have to present, you’ll want to be able to lay out your dashboard in a variety of different ways to meet different audience needs.  

From the ability to customise the way you display items on your dashboard, such as changing the size and location of your dashboard tiles, to the ability to alter its look and feel with different chart types, multimedia and even the branding your dashboard. It’s vital you have the tools to customise your dashboard layout and its items as much as you can.  

Data filtering

When you’re trying to get to grips with large volumes of data, any tools that can help you to more quickly get to the data you need are invaluable. Subsequently, to do this, you’ll want strong filtering options and the ability to display your data in a variety of different ways.  

With the right filtering tools, you should be able to isolate particular data sets, then compare the numbers and sentiments of each across different filters, so you can identify any differences and make smarter decisions based on that insight.

Real-time and historical data

When you’re trying to make the right judgement on a fast-moving issue, having accurate and real-time data is crucial. Similarly, if you want to quickly fact check an issue, you’ll need the means to swiftly check your data over a specified date range in the past.  

To help with this, a strong performing dashboard should be updating your data in real-time, so that it continually presents you with fresh findings every time you return to it after a short time away. And, if you want to check some data for a specific historical date range, this should be possible too, if your dashboard grid contains date range tabs which automatically update all the tiles on your dashboard whenever you reset them.

The right metrics

For today’s survey stakeholder audiences, one of the most important must haves in a dashboard is the availability of KPI metrics, particularly for the most common audiences of consumers and employees.

With an effective dashboard tool, these KPIs are typically displayed as highly visual metric gauge charts and metric trend charts, that are simple to read and understand. This is important, because depending on the metric scores they’ve provided, which for consumers includes NPS, CSAT and CES and for employees features eNPS, ESAT and EES metrics, you’ll quickly know how effectively you’re executing your customer or employee experience programmes.  

Sentiment analysis

While KPI metrics are great for allowing you to track stakeholder sentiment numerically, you’ll also want a way of tracking sentiment for open-ended questions, which are typically included in a survey to provide greater context behind a respondent’s survey answers. Subsequently, your dashboard must offer you the means to quickly assess the sentiment of answers to open-ended questions and what are the most urgent queries you need to address.  

Thankfully, if your dashboard tools include sentiment analysis, you’ll be able do to this, thanks to their ability to automatically tag open text question responses, according to whether those comments are positive, neutral or negative.  

Final thoughts

We hope you found this blog interesting and informative. And if you’re not already using a feedback survey dashboard in your business, you’ll feel compelled to do so.  

While we’ve already outlined plenty of great reasons why you should be using a feedback survey dashboard, your business will be more effective and efficient with one too. Fortunately, if you’re using SmartSurvey Dashboards, you’ll already be experiencing these benefits and more.

If not, there’s never been a better time to get acquainted with feedback survey dashboards. Start your journey with SmartSurvey’s Dashboards now!