What’s the biggest must-read for your business? Your customer feedback! It comes in all different shapes and sizes, but regardless of whether it’s singing your praises or making complaints, there is so much you can learn.
What is customer feedback?
Customer feedback is information provided by clients that gives details about their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with your product or service, or general information about their overall experience.
Positive customer feedback points out what your business is doing well, and negative customer feedback highlights areas that require improvement.
There are two ways that you can gather customer feedback, directly and indirectly.
Direct feedback
This is the type of feedback you actively request, including surveys, emails and interviews.
Indirect feedback
This type of feedback is unsolicited and collected through social media, online reviews and website analytics.
The benefits
There’s a long list of benefits when it comes to gathering feedback from your clients. We’ve highlighted a few of the major positive outcomes.
Measure customer satisfaction and loyalty
Feedback allows you to assess your customers’ satisfaction. You can gather direct feedback by asking customers to rate your product of service, or by using a metric that encourages them to rate their level of satisfaction. You can use this information to shape a loyal customer base, and your responses to dissatisfied customers can help you to change their tone and establish loyalty.
Improve your products or services
When you establish whether your customers are satisfied or unsatisfied, it’s important to then take a broader look at your business to see why they might be responding in that way. Is the majority extremely satisfied with your level of customer service, but a little less satisfied with the quality of the product? This type of feedback will help you to change and improve your business, based on what your customers are looking for,
Gain a better understanding of your customers
You can create the best customer experience when you have a better understanding of what your customers need. Feedback is a great way to learn more about your customers. Think carefully when writing feedback questions, determine what you want to learn or understand and write them accordingly.
It shows that you value your customers
When you request customer feedback, it shows that you’re interested in hearing about what your clients have to say. Before they’ve even answered the questions, customers can see that you’re actively listening and sourcing information to improve your offering.
How should you ask for feedback?
This depends largely on the type of business you run and the industry you’re in. For example, if you’re in building and construction and you’ve recently completed renovations on a client’s home, you may email them a survey or questionnaire in the weeks following to request direct feedback. If you’re a chef working at a local restaurant, you might seek verbal feedback by having wait staff ask customers how their meals were at the end of their sitting.
Gathering feedback is the easy part! What you choose to do with the information that will have the biggest impact on your business. If you’re interested in connecting with your customers and looking for ways to improve your approach, take a look at our article Top Customer Service Tips For Every Industry.
