How to Get Customer Feedback to Improve Your Business

Customer feedback plays a major role in helping businesses to establish a relationship with their clients. It highlights the areas they like and dislike about any product and allows businesses to experience what the consumers feel. Understanding how to get customer feedback helps businesses grow and prosper, providing them with insight into what they can do to provide their customers with continued satisfaction. In this article, we share tips on how businesses can get customer feedback and discuss its importance.

How to get customer feedback to grow your business

Here are 15 tips on how to get customer feedback to improve your employer's business and its products and services:

1. Send a follow-up email

A follow-up email is a simple way to get feedback from your customers. After customers receive their products or services, send them a follow-up email asking how their experience was. Ask specific questions such as "How likely are you to recommend this product?" or "What could we have done better?"

2. Use surveys

Surveys are an easy way to get customer feedback. You can use an online tool to create your survey and send it through email or post it on social media. Be intentional about only asking essential questions. This saves time for both you and your customers and solicits better responses. Also, while asking multiple-choice questions can make it easy for your customers to respond, you better understand what your customers are thinking if you use open-ended questions.

3. Offer live chat support

Live chat allows your customers to get in touch with you immediately. Customers can share their thoughts and concerns, whether it's a complaint or a suggestion. It's a good idea to record these conversations to refer to in the future. You can also use live chat software to allow customers to self-serve and help themselves.

4. Engage in social media

Social listening is an effective way to get customer feedback. Social listening allows you to monitor all forms of social media and receive the most relevant information on your customer's suggestions and complaints. This information helps you identify the needs of your customers and understand their expectations better. You can also use built-in polling tools that most social networks now offer, as well.

5. Provide on-site customer feedback forms

While a feedback email is a simple way to allow customers to give feedback, a dedicated feedback form on your website can encourage people to leave feedback. It's a good idea for the form to be short and include all relevant questions. If possible, give customers the option to email their feedback or complete the online form.

6. Call your customers

While this method is more effort-intensive, you can personalize it and generate the best customer responses. By speaking to the customer directly, you can show the customer that you want to help them and, by hearing their tone, you can sense their level of satisfaction. Gauging their response can help you highlight areas of improvement.

Related: 6 Tips for Managing Customer Relationships (With Benefits)

7. Ask for feedback on the confirmation page

One of the easiest ways to ask for feedback is to add this request on the confirmation page after your customer has purchased a product or service. The confirmation page includes all relevant information about the transaction. It's best for the questions you ask on this form to be brief and multiple-choice, although it's important to include a text box so buyers can add comments.

8. Use polls

Polls are effective ways to gather customer feedback without having to ask all of your customers individually. It's best to create short polls or include multiple-choice questions only, as this makes the process easier for your customers and encourages more responses. Companies can use them to identify customer buying trends, which can impact business decisions.

9. Utilize abandoned cart feedback

Cart abandonment emails are emails sent to customers who have added items to their shopping carts but didn't finish their purchase. These emails typically include a link for the customer to complete their purchase. They also can include a survey link for the shopper to provide feedback on why they left without making a purchase.

Related: 15 Customer Service Interview Questions and Answers

10. Use SMS surveys

SMS, short for short message service, is a widely used type of text messaging. SMS is a powerful channel for requesting feedback from your customers. These messages have a higher open rate than email and are ideal if you only know the customer's phone number. SMS surveys are also perfect for collecting information in real-time.

11. Analyze website visitor session replays

Session replays allow you to see exactly what your customers do on your website. This analysis enables you to improve the site and make it easier for customers to navigate and complete transactions quickly. These recordings also allow you to learn more about customers' concerns, such as if any page or form field confused them.

12. Offer incentives for feedback

A great way to increase the number of customer responses is to give customers an incentive for providing feedback. A common option is offering a coupon or discount for their feedback, but you can also consider giving away more complex incentives like sweepstakes entries. These are promotions where you can randomly select a winner from all eligible entries. Just make sure the option you choose, it's something that attracts your ideal customer's attention and encourages them to participate.

13. Measure customer service performance

When you close a complaint ticket, you can send an email survey asking customers to rate their experience on a scale of one to five. You could also ask a series of questions and ask customers to respond with a yes or no. If you notice negative responses within the feedback, you can reach out to the customer directly to resolve their problem.

Related: Customer Service Skills: Definition and Examples

14. Display positive feedback

There are multiple advantages to displaying positive feedback on your website. First, it serves as recognition for customers who share feedback and provides social proof about the value of your products and services. Second, it encourages other customers to leave feedback, as customers notice you value their opinions.

15. Create an online community

Creating an online community is a great way to generate feedback for your company, although it requires continuous monitoring. For example, you can encourage and reward your users to share experiences, videos or pictures, and other feedback within the forum and use that information in your marketing or business decisions. Your online community can be an open channel for the customers to post suggestions on your company's brand.

Related: Tips on How to Deal with an Angry Customer

The importance of getting customer feedback

Customer feedback plays a crucial role in the success of any business. Here are a few ways in which it helps:

Increase conversions

Customer feedback helps your company increase conversions by making changes that reflect what product or service customers want. For example, if an overwhelming majority of the customer feedback notes that the order process is fast and straightforward, you may choose to avoid any change. Or you can include a live chat option to improve the customer experience even more.

Improve engagement

Getting customer feedback shows that you value your customers' opinions, which helps improve engagement. Customers are likely to respond more favourably when they know you value their feedback and feel empowered to voice their concerns directly with the company. Feedback is also a good way to capture customer insights and use those insights to connect with customers.

Display social proof

By displaying positive customer feedback on your website or marketing materials, you can create social proof about your company's products and services. While this might not directly affect conversions, it helps encourage customers to convert by establishing trust and confidence in your company. Social proof is important because many customers find new brands to follow online based on recommendations from other customers.

Build repeat business

Customer feedback can help you build a loyal customer base by encouraging return purchases and referrals. When your product or service satisfies your customers' needs, they're more likely to continue buying from you. They're also likely to refer to friends and family who have similar interests or needs.

Improve products and services

By regularly getting feedback from customers, you can change your product or service that increases the likelihood of converting a customer. For example, if your customer uses your product or service in a way that you didn't intend, you might update it to serve those customers better. This way, you're meeting your customers' needs while improving the quality of your product or service.

Measure customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction and loyalty directly affect a company's financial performance. By getting customer feedback, you can gauge customer satisfaction and take the necessary steps to improve. It also ensures you keep growing your customer base over time and retain existing customers.

Help make business decisions

Customer feedback is one of the most reliable sources of data for businesses. It helps you better understand your customers and their needs. By obtaining feedback from customers, you can make better business decisions, such as allocating money. You can also launch new loyalty programs that may increase your customers' trust in your brand.