What is Customer Feedback?
So you’re running your own business and providing everything possible to satisfy your customers. You have developed amazing customer service in order to match their needs and desires. But how can you be sure your customer services strategies are working? How do you know if your customers are happy with the experience? What do they dislike and like about your products or services? Customer feedback is one of the most vital sources of information for your business. It helps improve product development, marketing, operations and overall success. Listening to your customers and making adjustments is the best way to move a business forward.
Why Collecting Customer Feedback is Important
Not only does collecting customer feedback improve products and services, it also:
Helps you measure customer satisfaction.
Customer satisfaction and loyalty is a crucial factor that determines a company’s overall performance. Therefore there is no doubt that you want to make sure your clients are happy with your products and services. Using rating based questions you can easily estimate the level of satisfaction.
Shows that you value their opinions
By asking feedback from your customers you are involving them in shaping your business and as a result they feel more attached to your company. It also helps create and nurture relationships with them. People appreciate when you ask them for their feedback, it shows that your primary business goal is to solve their problems and fulfil their needs.
Improve your customer experience
More recently, marketing strategy has moved away from simply selling products and their features and transitioned towards selling the experience people have with the products. For example, Apple greets each customer with a warm welcome, the employee then asks questions to find and present solutions to their problem. The store is white and minimalistic in order to portray prestige and status. By collecting feedback you can ensure you are providing the best customer experience at every touch point. In Apple’s scenario, they can ask customers about the in-store experience. “Were you overwhelmed? Did one of our associates provide a suitable solution for your needs?”
Improve customer retention
Point blank, satisfied customers will stay with you. Customer feedback helps you determine if your clients are happy with your products and services. Every time a client shows dissatisfaction you should immediately reach out and find a solution. Oftentimes the focused, transparent, and prioritization of their dissatisfaction will lead to an even bigger devotion to your brand.
Reliable source for information to other consumers
Customers have transitioned away from trusting advertisements on major platforms and now rely on the opinions of those they trust. Putting faith into a real individual that took the time to review your products or services. For example, when you want to book a hotel do you watch their advertisements or do you go to the review section? Customer feedback is not only important to your business but to other customers. Ensure that you and your clients have easy access to opinions and reviews.
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning”
Bill Gates
How Do I Collect Customer Feedback?
You want to make it as easy as possible for customers to leave feedback. Creating multiple locations or routes that a customer can review your business is step one.
Collecting customer feedback doesn’t just have to be traditional surveys it can also look like:
- A simple call to your customers
- Social media activity monitoring
- Providing feedback forms
- Customer service performance analytics
- Providing an active online community with support
- New and existing customer email surveys
- Creating a feedback area on your order confirmation page – “how did we do?”
- Online Polls
- Offering a gift or prize in return for feedback
- In-App feedback
- Asking for feedback at the point of service
- Customer advocacy – directly asking for a testimonial, Google review, case study analysis, etc.
Be sure to ask specific questions when you are looking for feedback. You must avoid bias at all costs but ensure that the customer knows what they are being asked. Imagine writing the question from a third party perspective and align the questions with things you genuinely need direction on. For example, a specific product, service, or feature that you are considering adding to your suite. Ask whether the pain point is present and then ask if your approach solves it sufficiently.
Identifying Useful vs Useless Feedback
Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether a customer’s feedback is geared towards improving your company or it’s just simply trying to bash your company. There are few key aspects that you can keep in mind when reviewing your feedback.
Useful feedback:
- Points out an actual pain point or problem that you can mend or improve upon
- The feedback would benefit others if implemented and isn’t solely the opinion of an individual customer
- Typically useful feedback is fairly long and detailed, it is clear that the customer carefully crafted it (effort analysis)
- It may suggest one or two improvements but not a complete change of your company’s strategy, mission or industry
- The feedback is generally relayed in a fairly kind manner (constructive approach)
Useless feedback:
- Doesn’t have a clear pain point or problem and there is no way for you to try to “solve” it
- It brings up an off-topic pain point and doesn’t seem like any other customers or prospects are facing similar problems
- It’s usually on the shorter side and can be a short burst of angry typing
- It suggests you change your entire company strategy
How Often Should I Collect Customer Feedback?
You can collect feedback at any time. There are more laid back routes that are continuous. As well as the more formal strategy where you can launch surveys or evaluations. Typically speaking you want a mixture of both but at the very least should collect some information semi-annually.
If you’re looking to do a formal survey a great tool is Survey Monkey. They offer a free option where you can easily create surveys with basic analytics. Another great option is Google Forms. Google forms are less customizable but are still a great option that provide basic analytics.
What Should I Do With Customer Feedback Data?
Now that you have all the data, it’s time to analyze it. You can do multiple things with your data. You can segment your data, which means breaking it up by the different characteristics of your customers. Age, gender, first time customers, previous customer etc. This can help you identify if there are any trends that some customers are facing that others aren’t.
You’ll most likely see trends or problems that customers are facing right away. You can categorize these trends as well. Create categories that relate to product improvements, customer experience improvements, website improvements etc.
You may also want to prioritize the feedback you receive in order to determine which ones you’re going to act on first. The priorities will change depending on your business. A current and substantial problem will take precedence over any new work. Once you have your improvements prioritized you are ready to implement them!
Customer feedback is essential to your business’ success and finding it doesn’t have to be hard.
If you would like any more information or would like to talk to us here at Tactycs don’t hesitate to send us a message!