Lely is a Dutch agricultural machine and robot manufacturer. With their innovative solutions, they make life easier for farmers worldwide. Lely strives to enable dairy farmers to work as efficiently as possible with their robots, which is why collecting feedback is an important part of their improvement process. Because Lely is active in more than 40 countries worldwide, language is a major challenge, especially when collecting user feedback. Hence their need for Mopinion’s multi-language reporting, which is the feedback translator function.
In this latest customer story featuring input from Michael de Jong (User Experience Researcher at Lely), we will look at how Lely has been collecting feedback for the past half year, why they selected Mopinion as their solution, how they use the feedback translator and what they have achieved thus far collecting feedback.
Feedback directly from the source
Lely, and particularly the UX team, gather feedback with the objective to improve their systems and align them with the needs of the dairy farmers. Whilst they previously collected feedback prior to working with Mopinion, the process wasn’t exactly a smooth one.
“Collecting feedback used to be a challenge, because it was often collected via a multitude of sources and then heavily filtered before arriving at the correct department. Feedback was, therefore, not interpreted properly nor used effectively for improvements. There were times when it wasn’t clear when feedback was provided or which version of the system it concerned. For example, sometimes it would take a month for feedback to reach the UX team, and by then it was often no longer relevant due to updates.”
Michael de Jong, User Experience Researcher, Lely
As a result, the team decided to look elsewhere and landed upon a more effective feedback solution: Mopinion, a decision which enabled them to gather feedback directly from the source!
“Mopinion enables us to ask our dairy farmers for feedback directly in the system. Feedback is also collected in real time and thanks to the metadata that is sent along, it is easy to see when the feedback was given, where it came from and in which version of the system the feedback was given.”
Different countries, different languages
Lely operates on a global scale and offers support within their systems for a significant number of languages. It was clear from the start that feedback forms should be available in multiple languages so that everyone has the opportunity to provide feedback.
De Jong: “We have a foothold in most countries, which was a good reason to translate all of the feedback forms we created ourselves so that they would be usable for the farmers. We do this ourselves in collaboration with translation agencies and clusters spread across the various countries (and continents) in which we operate. They know the local farmers and understand how they communicate in those countries. They are also able to translate technical jargon and other difficult terms used.”
The translation of feedback forms can therefore easily be done internally.
“But then a second question follows: What are we going to do with the feedback that comes back? Because of course it also comes in different languages. Then we came across Mopinion’s multi-language reporting…”
With the translation feature, it’s possible to have the feedback automatically translated, so that all feedback arrives in the feedback inbox in one language. Lely chose to use English as their main language as it is more inclusive for international colleagues. Working with one language in the inbox also makes it easier to add tags and analyse the feedback using text and sentiment analysis.
In November 2022, feedback forms were launched in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The first forms consisted of proactive forms that requested feedback on new features, which has since generated quite a great deal of feedback. While the feedback translator was not fully live, it seems De Jong is already quite impressed with the capabilities of the multi-language reporting:
“A standard, passive feedback form – written in English – was accidentally put live in all languages and countries. Whilst live, there was an immediate spike in the number of feedback items; particularly feedback provided via the open comments section. Many users provided feedback (in different languages) with the question of whether the feedback form could also be made available in their own language. Therefore, it was instantly apparent that both the feedback forms themselves and their translations were very much necessary.”
From problem to source to solution…
Despite the fact that Lely has only briefly worked with Mopinion, we were curious to hear more about the insights they have gained thus far with their feedback.
De Jong shared an example:
“We asked for feedback on one of our overview pages. We were already aware that improvements were needed thanks to previous signals. However, after collecting feedback on that page, we had a much better understanding of what needed to be improved. There were too many delays within the system and the overview page was far too detailed. After making the necessary improvements, we deployed a new feedback form to see if the changes had a positive impact. And that feedback proved to be very valuable!”
This is a great example of how Mopinion is used to find the source of certain problems. Although in this case Lely already had an inkling as to where improvements were needed, feedback brought them closer to the root of the problem and effectively suggested areas for improvement.
Lessons learned and a look into the future
De Jong expressed that there is a lot to learn from feedback, but also from the entire learning process of implementing feedback forms:
“Actually, the entire process starting from the idea of gathering feedback to actually asking questions has also been a learning process for us. How do we get the best feedback? How do we get a high response rate? We also investigated whether farmers felt the need to provide feedback in the first place.”
In the future, Lely wants to place a standard feedback form on the ‘start’ page asking for general feedback about the system and its functionalities. This will help Lely to get a better picture of overall satisfaction. In fact, they intend to roll out this approach in all countries!
Special thanks to Michael de Jong for sharing Lely’s experience with Mopinion thus far. We look forward to a long and prosperous relationship!
