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In any area of life, when you want to know how you’re doing, you set out to receive feedback. If you can’t see the problem, then perhaps someone else can. Businesses are the same way. They need input from users to figure out the next step of their strategy and move forward.
While general feedback is great, it doesn’t compare to the actual opinions of your customers. They’re the ones who invest in your products and it’s their experiences that convince them to return or not.
Whether they have a positive experience with your brand or not, it’s still important to collect consumer feedback.
Why Is Customer Feedback Important?
Collecting customer feedback isn’t super difficult, but generating quality feedback is. Customers don’t always take time out of their day to share their thoughts in detail, so when they do, it speaks volumes to inquiring customers.
If a customer has a negative experience with your brand, many times, they won’t even bother to leave a rating or review. Instead, they’ll pledge never to spend another dime on your business. Gathering feedback is important because it gives you the full picture instead of bits and pieces. You need to know as much as possible to create marketing strategies that work for your target market.
If you don’t actively pursue customers for their feedback, you’ll miss out on valuable information that could boost your conversions and put you ahead of the competition. Did you know that some companies spend as much as $2000 a month on conversion rate optimization tools? Instead of focusing on the root of the problem and speaking to customers, they’re using expensive methods they don’t need.
Collecting customer feedback also builds customer loyalty and shows your audience that you care about their needs. And the more you know about them, the more tailored, relevant content you can create. Around 73% of people prefer to invest in brands that personalize the shopping experience, which puts you ahead of your competitors.
Now that we know why collecting high-quality feedback from customers is important, let’s look at a few different ways to do so.
Live Chat
Many eCommerce businesses use live chat on their website to cater to customers. Live chat makes it easier to tend to visitors’ needs, provide solutions, and collect data. Instead of making educated guesses about what customers want, you can hear directly from the source.
After helping a customer, you can ask them to leave feedback regarding your brand. Getting their thoughts right away gives you more accurate information to work with. It’s also convenient for users because they’re already using the platform, which increases the chances of completion.
Feedback from users doesn’t always mean asking questions and receiving answers. You can learn a lot from conversations with visitors, including their preferences and buying behaviors.
Use live chat to offer excellent customer support so that the following feedback is positive. Around 80% of customers stop doing business with a company due to poor service, so having a positive first interaction can win you a loyal customer.
Surveys
It’s important to know where customers stand at each part of the buyer’s journey. If there are hiccups, you can track what caused them and how to prevent them in the future. You need to know what causes people to bounce from your site because the more who do, the fewer conversions you have the potential to make.
Surveys are great because users can answer open-ended questions that give you insight into their decisions. There’s nothing more beneficial than getting into your customers’ minds, and when you give them space for details, you’re better off. You can take their criticism and use it to refine your marketing strategy.
Email surveys are convenient because they’re sent straight to subscribers’ inboxes and require less work from the recipient. When you send the survey is up to you and what information you want to find out.
For example, you might send a survey a few days after a customer purchases a product to see what they say about it. You don’t want to wait too long to reach out in case the customer forgets about your brand or doesn’t feel like participating. Make sure to send out a feedback survey within a week of a customer’s purchase to ensure the most up-to-date information.
Your customer satisfaction survey might include questions about:
- How they found your store: Google search, friend or family recommendation, paid ad, local listing, etc.
- Why they chose your store: Availability, product type, pricing, location, perks, promotions, etc.
- Feedback on products and services: What they like, what they dislike, what they would change, what worked well, etc.
- Experience as a whole: Using your website, buying products, customer support, contact, delivery time, product quality, etc.
If you do receive negative feedback, which you will, take it with a grain of salt. Your brand isn’t perfect and will likely need to continue improving. Customer feedback exists to help you do better and see the results you’ve been waiting for. When someone complains, work quickly to resolve the issue and make them happy so you can prevent negative reviews.
Feedback Forms
You want to make it as easy as possible for users to come across your survey and choose to fill it out. People are picky about what they spend time on, and they aren’t always keen on filling out long surveys. That’s where feedback forms come in.
Feedback forms are embedded on your website and work the same as a contact form. They’re designed to collect information from users quickly and without causing frustration. So you must create your feedback forms with the user in mind to increase its completion rate.
When creating a feedback form, make sure to:
- Keep it short. Users don’t want to spend a lot of time answering your brand-related questions, especially when they don’t get anything in return. Only ask what’s necessary to ensure you get the most relevant information.
- Ask the right questions. No one’s going to fill out your form if they feel like you don’t understand their pain points. By asking the right questions, you show customers that you care about their experience with your brand and are paying attention to their concerns.
- Ask at the right time. If you catch users at a bad time, they’ll ignore your request for feedback and move onto something else. It’s easier to collect their thoughts soon after they take action on your site, such as purchasing a product or engaging with a live chat agent.
- Use branding. Using consistent branding across all channels and strategies is crucial to building brand recognition. When someone sees your logo or color scheme, you want them to know it’s you. Add your colors, fonts, and other elements to your forms to spread brand awareness.
Social Media
With three billion users worldwide on social media, you can bet your customers are already sharing their thoughts on different platforms. Social media is an outlet for people to be honest about their experiences, and that includes with businesses. Sometimes, the answers you can’t get from customers directly can be found on their social profiles.
Social listening is essential to better understanding your target market, identifying their pain points, and collecting valuable user feedback. It uses its finding to create new strategies that work for both the business and its consumers.
On social media, 43 percent of people use social media to research things to buy, and negative reviews and comments spread quickly. If someone has a negative experience with your brand, you want to make sure you resolve it before it gets out. Social listening lets you tackle these problems as soon as they come up so you end up with happy customers who come back for more.
As your brand grows, you’ll need to use social listening tools to monitor users’ activity and keep up with what people are saying. Keeping up with your audience on social media matters if you’re going to cater to their needs. Customers like interactive brands who respond to their comments and concerns, and doing so shows you care.
When you monitor social activity, collecting feedback is easier because the process feels more natural. Social media is a place where people aren’t afraid to hold back and be honest, whereas feedback forms are more formal and intimidating. You’re able to get more candid feedback because users feel more comfortable expressing themselves.
Your Turn
If you want your business to succeed, you need to start collecting customer feedback immediately. Customer feedback is the key to knowing what problems your business has, what it needs to focus on, and how it can improve. Failing to dig deep into how your customers feel and what they need will only lose you business and put you behind your competitors.
From the beginning, collecting feedback should be an integral part of your marketing strategy. Whether it’s positive or negative, both sides give you valuable insight into how you can improve. That way, you increase sales, improve user engagement, understand your target audience, and much more.
