How CNV Vakmensen uses online feedback for content optimisation

CNV Vakmensen is a modern labour union that addresses work and income interests. One of the largest in the Netherlands, its members benefit daily from the knowledge CNV Vakmensen has accrued since its establishment in 1896. This knowledge is shared with members in every stage of life: whether the member is studying, employed, seeking employment or enjoying their retirement.

CNV Vakmensen negotiators have closed nearly 600 collective bargaining agreements with other labor unions, which contain arrangements relating to work, such as the level of salary and agreements on education. Members are provided with personal and reliable advice on questions about work and income. Additionally, a team of lawyers is available to assist in legal issues for both work and private life.



An optimal online experience for visitors is important for the CNV Vakmensen websites, especially as this directly contributes to the success of their business. These websites allow visitors to explore and understand why they should become or remain a member of CNV Vakmensen. This means that if CNV Vakmensen wants to serve their customers to the best of their ability, they must continuously listen to the wishes as well as respond to the needs of these visitors. Among other methods, this has always been done this through panel surveys and monitoring the customer journey.

However, CNV Vakmensen has also recently started using Mopinion’s feedback analytics software, which gives their visitors the opportunity to provide feedback around-the-clock. Here’s their story…

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The Challenge

CNV Vakmensen launched its new website in 2014; a project which was geared towards making the website more customer-centric and mobile-friendly. It was also a chance to improve the self-service pages on the website, e.g. updating member details in ‘MijnCNV’ (my environment).

The challenge to make the website customer-centric was built around CNV Vakmensen’s approach to explain the ‘why’ rather than just the ‘what’. For example, for existing members, this new website would help them better understand the added value of their membership. Alternatively, for first-time visitors or non-members, it would convince them of the added value involved in becoming a member of the labour union. Additionally, the website was created with a ‘mobile-first’ approach. With more and more visitors accessing the website via their mobile device, CNV Vakmensen wanted to be sure every page and all content was suitable for this rise in mobile traffic.



Throughout the development period of this new website, CNV Vakmensen wanted to avoid making any incorrect assumptions…

For example, when creating a design, there is always the risk of designing from the perspective of the company rather than the customer. An assumption we made previously was the importance of news on our website. On the former website, news was featured prominently on the homepage, as well as on the news page and other pages of the website. But now we want to focus on showing the value of the labour union and what it is that we do.

Arnoud Terpstra, Online Marketer, CNV Vakmensen

The Solution

Ever since going live with the new site, CNV Vakmensen has been working on three different levels of optimisation: information (optimising information for the visitor), communication (optimising the interaction between the information and the visitor) and transaction (what does the visitor do in response to this information and communication).

Terpstra: “Our site is comparable to a content factory. There is a lot of information to digest and considering the fact that we serve an audience of nearly three million people, divided into nearly 600 collective bargaining agreements, knowing the reason for their visit is very important to us.



In order to capture insights into these areas, we put a lot of emphasis on collecting and analysing Customer Effort Scores (CES) as we believe this is an important indication of the user experience. We also use Goal Completion Rate (GCR) to understand the goals of our visitors. Based on this input and the specific goals they have, we can then optimise our content. In terms of collection methods, we initially started with Mopinion’s exit feedback forms but later switched to passive feedback forms to put the user back ‘in control’. For Mopinion, having to modify these feedback forms on specific pages was not much extra work and therefore has allowed the online marketer to put most of their focus on improving the website.

However, we believe that being able to interpret and follow up on feedback is just as important as offering a customer feedback tool to begin with – which is the main reason why we choose to work with Mopinion.”

The Result

Terpstra continues: “The Mopinion dashboard displays the most important statistics at a glance in real-time. Showing issues as they occur. The software segments the target group allowing us to make an even better analysis of the feedback results. We are now also able to directly follow up on feedback with the help of Mopinion software. And this speedy processing of feedback contributes to the strong involvement of visitors.

The customer feedback analytics software has also given us a good insight into the target audience. For example, we are now able to optimise our content based on the needs of our visitors. We can fill in the gaps in terms of any missing information regarding membership so that visitors can make an informed decision about becoming a member or just stay informed about the labour union in general.”

Based on the results received, CNV Vakmensen has already made some adjustments to the website and was able to come up with ideas for new features as well. The compliments of the visitors have also been very positive – this feedback is a valuable confirmation of the choices they’ve made.