Customer feedback is essential to every business in the age where we are witnessing cut-throat competition in nearly every industry. Customer loyalty is slowly, but surely, becoming a thing of the past.
“What customers have to say weighs a lot.”
Today, your customers are well aware of many alternatives they have for your product/services. And make no mistake, your competitors are using all their might to make your customers (both old and new) switch loyalties.
If you won’t pay heed to your customers’ suggestions and complaints, you will lose them sooner than later. Every comment of your customers matters big time for every business as it can make or break the reputation of your business.
Let me bring a stat-fact to your notice so you can better understand the importance of customer feedback. Did you know that only one out of every 26 customers is likely to bring up their complaints?
The other 25 customers will simply switch to another business without leaving a word. You can understand why it is important to make your customers feel that every word of theirs will be listened to and acted upon.
Let’s first understand what customer feedback is and why it is crucial to businesses’ fortunes today.
What Is Customer Feedback?
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As the term suggests, customer feedback is information provided by customers about their experience with your product or service. Customer feedback can be positive, negative, or mixed. The primary purpose of collecting customer feedback is to understand how your product or service could be improved.
Businesses collect customer feedback through different channels. We will discuss them later in the blog.
Why Customer Feedback Matters Big Time
- Customer Feedback Makes Customers Feel Valued
Customer is the King and you can’t choose to ignore its opinion. You’ve won half of the battle over your competitors if you make your customers feel valued, and collecting customer feedback is one of the most effective ways to do so. You should also be able to know whether your customers are happy with your product/services or not. When you make efforts to collect their feedback, they are likely to appreciate your business for treating them like royalty. When your customers know that they are being listened to, they are likely to stay around longer.
- Customer Feedback Helps Improve Products And Services
When you offer a new product or service to market, it is launched based on the research on your potential customers’ requirements. However, it is not before your customers use your product or service that they can determine if it is as per their expectations or needs further improvement. Customer feedback is an insight into what is working well about your product or service and what should be done to make the experience better.
- Customer Feedback Helps Gauge The Level Of Customer Satisfaction
For every business, customer satisfaction is of utmost importance. Customer feedback is the best way to find out the level of customer satisfaction and their opinions. Using rating-based questions like Net Promoter Score (NPS) rating, you can easily estimate the level of satisfaction and make necessary changes to the product or service (if required).
- Customer Feedback Helps You Deliver The Best Customer Experience
Contemporary marketing strategies are primarily inclined towards experiences people have with products, services, and brands. For example, people don’t buy Mercedes cars just because they are good. By doing so, they also display their status and loyalty to a particular group. If your business is committed to providing the best customer experience then your clients will stay loyal to your brand. Customer feedback is a medium through which they can tell you what they like about your product/service, what they don’t, and suggest ways to enhance them.
- Customer Feedback Is a Valuable Source Of Information For Other Potentials
These days, one of the first things that internet-savvy people do is to read the reviews of other customers who have already used a product or service. This gives them a more reliable source for information that can heavily influence their purchase-making decisions. Customer feedback can also help businesses with smart expense management as they might be spending more on features that customers don’t really want in the first place.
How To Collect Customer Feedback Efficiently
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Customer feedback is a handy source of information that is collected by businesses directly from consumers through different channels in different formats. Here, we will have a look at some of the most popular and effective ways to collect customer feedback.
1. Customer Feedback Surveys
Creating a useful customer survey can be trickier than you think. There are scores of questions that you can ask your customers to answer. The questions you choose usually depend on the type of products/services you offer. There are five types of customer feedback surveys you can choose from:
- NPS survey
- Customer Satisfaction survey
- Post-purchase survey
- Product or Service Development survey
- Usability survey
2. Pop-ups
Pop-ups are an effective way to encourage your website visitors to actively provide feedback. Many website users do not feel the urgency to participate in surveys unless you offer them a lucrative offer. Pop-up surveys appear out of nowhere as users navigate your website, asking them to rate their experience.
Pop-ups are about making it convenient for website users without forcing them to do it.
Though effective, this survey method should be implemented carefully. Poor usage of pop-ups can have negative repercussions. A good solution to this challenge is path targeting, which allows you to deploy pop-ups at the right time and place.
3. Automated Email
If you have email addresses of people who are genuinely interested in your product then you couldn’t have asked for more. If they have given you their contact details, it is because they don’t want to miss out on the latest updates and news from your brand. This also means that they would be more than willing to give suggestions on how you can improve your products/services. Asking for their feedback through email gives them a quick and easy way to offer their opinions on your products and services.
4. Social Media
With 4.55 billion social media users around the world as of October 2021, businesses cannot afford to miss out on leveraging hugely popular platforms to connect with both their actual and potential customers. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., allow businesses to collect feedback from customers directly through Direct Messages, Mentions, and Comments. Many networks also include built-in polling tools, which allow customers to quickly give feedback within a few seconds.
5. Short-in app Surveys
Customers usually think about how your product or service can work better for them. It can be that they find your website design too plain or complex, maybe your app doesn’t offer them a seamless user experience, or maybe they found something that is broken. Short-in app surveys allow your customers to contact you quickly, but don’t keep it long. Just keep your surveys to two to three relevant questions that are specific to the problems they are facing.
6. Phone Calls
This is probably the most common method of collecting customer feedback. Even though the surveys and tests will give you loads of information, these methods can never make you feel connected to the customer the way phone calls do. You need to hear what a person truly feels about your product. Collecting customer feedback through phone calls is a personalized method that evokes an extremely engaging response. A person’s voice and tone is probably the most effective way to know what they actually feel about your product or service.
Conclusion
It’s evident in this digital age that businesses need to collect timely and accurate customer feedback through different channels to understand and analyze their experience with your product or service. Customer feedback gives valuable insights to businesses, which can help businesses make more improved products or services.
I hope that the six customer feedback methods mentioned above will help you have a useful insight into your customer base and act accordingly. Good luck!
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