From feedback to follow-through: how Ricoh uses Clientshare

As a Global Service Manager at Ricoh Europe, I’m always looking for practical ways to understand how customers are feeling, not just how we think things are going. For me, that’s where Clientshare Pulse has made a real difference.

A simpler way to gather feedback

Before using Clientshare Pulse, our feedback process was much heavier. We had a much longer survey in place, around 40 questions, and it was too complicated. Response rates were poor and, even when feedback did come in, it wasn’t always easy to turn it into something meaningful.

Clientshare feels very different. The send-outs are shorter, easy to access and much more straightforward for customers to complete, which makes a real difference when you are trying to get honest, timely feedback.

What works particularly well for me is how easy Clientshare is to build into the account management process I already have. After a quarterly service review, I can send a follow-up review that includes the presentation slides and any other relevant content, and add the actions we’ve agreed, complete with end dates. Those action deadlines then come back to me, which is genuinely helpful from an account management point of view. It means Clientshare is not just a way to ask for feedback, it helps me keep track of what happens next.

Reaching beyond the review meeting

One of the biggest benefits I’ve experienced is that it can help you hear from people beyond the review meeting itself. In one case, with a global biotech customer, we wanted to understand their feedback more clearly after a complex period. Working closely with the customer, we sent a Clientshare review out to a much wider stakeholder group across their organisation, most of whom would never normally attend a quarterly review.

The feedback confirmed areas where satisfaction needed improvement and, more importantly, it showed us what mattered most to the customer. From there, we built a detailed service improvement plan based on the comments and themes we received. Over time, sentiment improved and the relationship strengthened, giving us a much clearer route forward than relying on KPIs alone.

That is probably the biggest value of Clientshare for me. You can be performing well against agreed contract measures and still have a customer who is unhappy. Clientshare Pulse helps uncover that gap, so you can understand what is driving the dissatisfaction and take action earlier.

Making it easy for customers to engage

Of course, as with any feedback process, success depends on how you introduce and maintain it. At first, some customers were hesitant to click into a new tool, but once that initial concern is handled, the experience is very easy for them. There is no login, no password to remember and the survey only takes about a minute to complete.

That simplicity matters. If giving feedback feels like hard work, most people will put it off and never come back to it. Keeping it quick and straightforward makes it much easier for customers to engage.

I also think Clientshare works best when it is presented as a shared process with the customer, rather than just another supplier tool. If the customer helps communicate why the feedback matters, you can reach a much wider audience and get more value from it. That has been one of the biggest lessons for me.

For account managers, that’s really where Clientshare Pulse stands out. It is quick and easy to use, easy for customers to engage with and genuinely useful when you want to move from feedback to action. For me, it has become a practical part of how I manage accounts, improve relationships and make sure the customer voice is heard beyond the people in the room.