Customer feedback can be invaluable to your business if you know how to collect it. It provides a way to troubleshoot issues, improve products, and tweak how you serve your customers. Good customer feedback is the cornerstone of a customer-centric approach to business.
In this age of digital analytics, it can be easy to overlook the human aspect of doing business. No amount of data can replicate the real and actionable insights that customers can provide. They’re the people who can tell you what’s good and what’s not so good about your firm and your products.
That’s why it’s critical to know how to ask for customer feedback. To understand the best ways of getting the kinds of insights that will help your business to thrive and grow.
It's easy to ignore an impersonal and formal feedback request. However, it's less likely that a customer would shut down someone genuinely trying to start a dialogue with them. At the very least, you should ensure that you use their name. In an ideal world, it's great also to tailor the questions you ask to their individual experience with a firm.
That way, they'll feel like you're genuinely interested in what they have to say. This is important. Customer feedback should not be about going through the motions; that would be a waste of everybody's time.
How to Ask For Customer Feedback
With your preparation done, you can start thinking about the different ways to ask for feedback. There are plenty of options to choose from. Some will work better for certain businesses than others. The following six are alternatives, which often deliver great feedback results.
1. Email Surveys
Email surveys are the route that most companies go down. They’re easy to set up, and much of the process of asking for feedback this way can be automated. That’s handy if you don’t have much time to devote to the task.
There are two main ways to go with email surveys. You could send out messages with links to a full survey you’ve built for the purpose. Tools like SurveyMonkey and JotForm Survey Maker are great for that. Your other choice is to ask a customer for a direct reply to your emails, sharing their thoughts.
The former option helps you get feedback, often at scale, to specific questions. The latter gives customers a bit more freedom to share their insights. Collating and processing the feedback takes more time and effort, however.
Whatever type of email survey you opt for, try to keep things short and sweet. You need to keep your customer’s attention. At least for as long as it takes for them to send their feedback into you. The average human attention, after all, is only around eight seconds.
The idea is pretty simple. You email your customers and ask them for their thoughts on your business and products. Rather than leave it at that, you give them an incentive for providing feedback. That might be a prize or money off a future purchase in exchange for feedback.
You could even link your search for feedback with referral marketing. Promote the prize or reward you're offering as if it's a giveaway. Frame the request for feedback as merely a way for customers to take part. You get your feedback, as well as the significant benefits that a top viral giveaway can deliver.
5. Social Media Polls
There are more than 3.4 billion worldwide users of social media in 2019. Whatever your personal opinions of social networks, as a business, it’s foolish to ignore them. Social media polls are an informal and fun way to ask for customer feedback and get it almost instantly.
Pretty much all the major social networks now let you post polls. Your followers can then vote in them with just a click or a tap. They’ll be keen to do so, too, as that’s the only way for them to see how others have voted. These polls are great for getting customers engaged with your brand. What they don’t do is get you the same kind of comprehensive feedback as other methods on this list.
6. Usability Tests
It’s perhaps a stretch to include usability tests in a guide to how to ask for customer feedback. They don’t involve you asking customers anything. What they do give you are the same crucial insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your products or services.
The idea of usability tests is a straightforward one. You round up a focus group of people representative of your customers. You then watch them use your website, service, or product. That lets you see what makes them happy and what they don’t like so much. It helps you identify the things you need to change to make your offering to customers better.
FAQ: How to Ask For Customer Feedback
Customer feedback is crucial as it provides a real-world perspective on how your business operates and how your customers perceive it. It helps identify areas of improvement, enhance customer satisfaction, and tailor products or services to meet customer needs better.
The frequency of asking for customer feedback depends on your business needs and customer interactions. Regular intervals, such as quarterly or bi-annually, can help track progress and identify trends. However, immediate feedback after key interactions (e.g., after a purchase or customer service call) can provide timely and actionable insights.
Common methods for collecting customer feedback include:
- Email surveys and questionnaires.
- On-site feedback forms.
- Phone or in-person interviews.
- Social media polls and comments.
- Usability tests and focus groups.
Handling negative feedback involves:
- Acknowledging and thanking the customer for their input.
- Investigate the issue and understand the root cause.
- Communicating any actions taken to address the feedback.
- Using negative feedback as an opportunity to improve your products or services.
After the Feedback Process
Once you've got your customer feedback, there are a few other things to keep in mind. First, you should always show your gratitude to the customers who provided it. At the very least, have a thank you email which goes out after any feedback is submitted. Aside from just being good manners, it's a great way to bolster your relationship with those customers further.
You don't have to leave it at that. If customer feedback led to you making substantive changes, let those customers who provided it know. If the input were negative, they'd be happy to see you've acted to rectify the issue they flagged up. It might even persuade them to give you their business again when they wouldn't otherwise have done so.
What do you think about customer feedback? Do you find customer feedback as a valuable asset to a business? Let us know in the comments.
Bio: Sam O'Brien is the Senior Website Optimisation & User Experience Manager for EMEA at RingCentral, a global VOIP provider. You can connect with him on LinkedIn. Sam has a passion for innovation and loves exploring ways to collaborate more with dispersed teams.