Customer feedback is a powerful guidance system for your business—it provides you with insights that can significantly improve your customer experience and, in turn, your ROI.
But here’s the thing: with so many customers and their evolving needs, collecting continuous feedback can get overwhelming. If you are confused about where to start or how to optimize your existing feedback-collection system, this article describes six effective ways to gather actionable responses from your users.
What Is Customer Feedback?
The best way to grow your customer base and keep them engaged is to listen to what they have to say about your products and services. While good feedback enables you to understand if you are doing it right, bad feedback gives you the needed insights on how to improve your existing solutions.
This is crucial for your business’ growth, as it is the only way to develop your products or services in the right direction and ensure your competitors don’t steal your customers.
6 ways you can use customer feedback to improve your Business
Did you know that improving the customer experience can increase sales revenues by 2 to 7 percent? And the best way to guarantee a great customer experience is to know exactly what your customers want.
Here are five ways in which customer feedback can help improve your business today.
- Credibility
Positive customer feedback is essential to creating a strong brand image. Customers rely on brand testimonials and customer reviews more than ever for purchasing decisions. Customer reviews also act as social proof and improve the trustworthiness of your brand. - Identify Development Areas
Customer feedback provides you with insights into market demands and how you can meet them. Their opinions also help you identify existing gaps in your business and make improvements.
The idea here is simple: when you listen to your customers, you can create a better product or service that solves their problems and meets their needs. - Better Business Decisions
Customer data lets you make informed decisions for your business’s growth. It gives your business an edge while developing solutions that actually meet customer expectations and saves you from making mistakes that otherwise could turn out to be costly.
Whether you want to create a better customer experience or run marketing campaigns for your target audience, you need data about your users. - Improved Customer Loyalty
When customers have a better experience and feel that their opinions are being heard, they are more likely to stick with your brand. This strengthens your brand’s image in the market and improves customer loyalty. Not only will you enhance your relationships with your existing customers, but they will also promote your brand through word-of-mouth to other potential users. - Clear Understanding Of Customer Behavior
A Salesforce survey reveals that 73% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. To curate your products or services for your target audience and build the right marketing strategies, you need to have accurate buyer personas. Gathering real customer feedback validates the personas you may have created and optimize the processes accordingly. - Increased Revenue
The main goal for any business is to have enough sales. When you understand your customers and fulfill their needs, they are likely to purchase from you. Creating a positive brand image and providing a great customer experience ensure your customers stick with you in the future. Positive reviews from your customers also influence other potential users to try out your brand and can result in greater sales.
5 Super smart ways to collect your customer feedback
Wondering how to ask for customer feedback in a way that leads to responses? Here are 6 effective ways to ask your customers for their opinions.
Customer Survey
Surveys are one of the most popular ways to collect customer feedback. But developing the right survey that receives actionable responses can be challenging. You need to ask the right questions, in a user-friendly way to encourage your customers to fill out surveys.
You may opt for long or short surveys, depending on your needs. Also, ensure you are targeting the right customers for the survey campaigns, and create a plan that meets your end goals.
- Choose a specific customer survey topic. This ensures you don’t get diverted from your end goal and customers feel less confused while responding to the questions.
- Decide question types. There can be multiple question types like quantitative questions that have fixed responses or open-ended questions if you want respondents to have the flexibility to answer as they want. Determine what you are looking for from your survey campaign and align the questions with the goal.
- Consider other factors. It’s important to create a navigable layout design, optimal survey length, and an overall user-friendly experience to get responses from your customers.
Get started with tools like Reviewfy.io to create effective survey campaigns for free that are not only easy to implement but also encourage responses from your users.
1. On-Site Analytics
Analytics reveal how customers are interacting with your business online and can be a great source for understanding customer behavior. This feedback can then be used to personalize their experiences on-site or influence their purchasing decisions.
You can also figure out which portion of your site is doing great or needs to be improved. This is great for fixing any existing gaps and optimizing the customer experience without directly asking them to share their feedback
2. Social Media
If you are struggling with low response rates on your feedback requests, leveraging social media can be a great way to engage with your audience and even ask for their opinions. In today’s time, people love sharing their experiences on social media – create an active social media presence to interact with your customers and encourage them to share their experiences online.
You can do this through polls, asking relevant questions online, or even creating a hashtag campaign asking users to share their experiences with your brand. Make sure you respond smartly to help improve customer relations and make them feel heard.
3. Chat Support
When customers are already chatting with your team members, it becomes more likely for them to respond to your feedback request. Asking them about their opinions in real-time not only makes them feel more valued but also encourages an answer. However, their feedback may not be completely honest, especially if it’s a negative one, while conversing in a live chat.
4. In-App Feedback
The best time to ask for your customers’ feedback is right after they finish interacting with your platform or making any purchases. Since the experience is still fresh in their minds, you can get better responses.
You can do it through a popup on the app screen or by asking for a rating. In-app feedback is a little harder to implement than other conventional methods but is a great way to ask short feedback questions in real time.
5. Direct Outreach
Reaching out directly to your customers for their feedback can open up conversations that otherwise might not happen. You can hear their opinions in-depth and also solve some of their problems or misperceptions in real-time.
Here are four tips if you are thinking of interviewing your customers:
- Start with open-ended questions as they give more flexibility to your customers while responding
- Be specific about the questions that you ask to avoid confusion and waste of time
- Listen to your customers with the genuine intention to solve their problems
- Correct any wrong assumptions that they may have and solve any ongoing issues
Final Thoughts
Gathering customer feedback is a crucial aspect of your business’ growth. Strategizing an effective survey campaign can provide you with meaningful insights and help create a better customer experience.
Consider starting with your most important goals and leveraging the different channels discussed above to collect customer feedback the right way.
FAQs:
- What is the quickest way to obtain customer feedback?
Surveys are the quickest and most used way to collect customer feedback. However, different channels including social media, in-app feedback, or live chat can also be used to get real-time reviews from customers.
- What is customer feedback and examples?
Customer feedback is the information customers give you about their experiences with your products and services. Examples of this include feedback on your product features or the existing customer service based on the experiences your users had with your brand.
