Customer feedback is a powerful tool in improving customer experience and retention rate. It sheds light on what you’re doing right and wrong as a business from the perspective of your customers. Feedback is essential because without it, you will never be able to grow as a company. Valuing customer insights ensures you stay responsive to the needs of your target market, even as those needs change over time.
Successful feedback collection begins with goal-setting. List down your desired outcomes and outline the process for achieving these targets. Ensure that you’re willing to introduce changes, whether in your product offerings or marketing strategies, before collecting feedback. Without actionable changes, there’s no reason to gather customer input. Having a clear plan ensures you don’t waste your efforts and your customers’ time.
Customer feedback comes in different forms. Below, we’ve compiled tried-and-tested ways to collect valuable market input.
Customer feedback surveys
Surveys are popular feedback tools because they require little time and effort to answer. On the other hand, because options are fixed, you reduce your chances of getting more specific and valuable insight.
Creating an effective customer survey may be more challenging than you think. Instead of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and multiple-choice questions, use open-ended questions. These will encourage customers to express how they personally feel about your brand. Avoid asking loaded questions and limit your question count to where the survey can be accomplished in no more than five minutes.
Surveys can come in two forms: short slider surveys which usually pop on your site or longer, in-depth surveys. Short sliders are designed to identify specific issues while longer surveys provide a deep dive into your product, branding, or both. Fortunately, modern online survey software can help you design questionnaires and even interpret results on a real-time analytics dashboard.
Social media
Social networks can give you access to candid customer insights and real-time engagement with your brand. The secret is to keep track of mentions of your brand and your competitors. This way, you can see which marketing approaches work best on your target market.
Social listening allows you to provide instant customer support for people experiencing problems with your products, whether or not they reached out for help. This shows customers that you are proactive in meeting their needs.
Aside from tracking direct comments or mentions, social networks allow you to create fun polls and surveys. Twitter and Instagram feature built-in polling tools that offer unique ways to encourage feedback and engagement.
Direct customer interviews
Sometimes, the best way to get honest feedback is to simply ask for one. Reaching out to customers directly either through phone calls or face-to-face interviews opens up conversations that provide qualitative data.
Interviews allow customers to provide more detailed responses. These insights can help you understand the emotions behind customer decisions.
When conducting interviews, always use open-ended queries. Start with wider experiences regarding your brand and be more specific as the conversation evolves. Ask follow-up questions and be a good listener. Practice eye contact and keep the conversation light, but straight to the point.
Whether good or bad, customer feedback can bring positive changes to your company. Understanding what your target market cares about can help you increase your ROI and stay ahead of the competition.
