Who likes advice? No one! Who needs advice? Everyone!
A hard situation to be, isn’t it? And now you get advised online too. Everybody claims this is the best thing for you. Could that be true? Try googling about something and you get a million other sites that offer guides and tutorials and what not on the subject. To ensure that you are not losing out on any information and that you are covering the topic tip from head to toe, you would naturally open multiple pages. Most of the content overlaps and the other site is saying just the same thing with a different tense and tone. More or less, you end up with multiple variations of the same content. Imagine you are trying out a recipe for chocolate cake. You would find all the sites that offer recipes for a chocolate cake claims their version is the best and yummiest.
This is true for almost all the topics and customer feedback system is no different. Customers are the king in the business world. It is the businesses that resonate perfectly with their customers, enjoy constant development. The customer feedback system is such an integral part for your business you must have asked around to know more about it. They all say the same things and the thing you should remember is that those tips are popular because they work. Instead of asking around anymore, here in this blog we discuss the 10 such things that you are tired of hearing.
1. Ask questions the right way
Let’s begin with the most popular mantra of the customer feedback system. Whoever you depend on, be it a person or Google, this is the first advice they would give you. If you want the answers right, ask the right questions. You craft the questions according to the information you want. Mundane and complicated answers would gain you only survey dropouts. Designing questions is not an easy task as it sounds. The order and the form in which the questions are presented can influence the participant significantly. Beating around the bush is a no-no. You don’t want to end with the enormous amount of raw data. Unorganized and ill-supervised survey designs could even become a reason for customer churning. Providing different types of questions keeps the survey interesting. As to provide an engaging and easier experience for the respondents, you can also try choices like a Likert Scale for your questionnaires. You should also give the customer an option to skip certain questions at least. Again, remember that you are not here for the sake of filling up data storage. You need to generate meaningful and data-driven reports through this.
2. The popular questions
There are a number of questions that everybody considers as the go-to options in the customer feedback system. These questions are considered to be the most effective and hence most used. They are believed to be quintessential to a survey because they do cover up the basic areas. Feedback on the product is recommended to carry a question that enquires the best feature of the product. You should be asking about the changes they want to see in your next product. These questions help you to harvest information that you need to set your future goals.
If you are using the customer feedback system to get information regarding the website usage, the most used questions would be:
- Were you able to find the content you were looking for?
- How would you rate the navigation experience through our site?
- Did you enjoy the new updates?
Another important section is where you are testing the loyalty of your customers. A Question like, “Would you recommend us to your friends?” or one that specifically asks for a reason to choose you rather than your competitor, helps you evaluate brand loyalty.
3. Be Proactive
Proactive communication is the key to success. The customer feedback system is a long and continuous process. You cannot show signs of indifference towards your customers. From market research to after-sales support, you must be energetic and positive consistently. Your customers can pick up on all this through the frequency and tone of conversation that is being delivered. Start interesting conversations, send an email after they sign-up… All this makes them feel valued and this will be definitely reflected on your survey completion rates. They would feel obliged to give solid answers to you. The conversational style of the feedback process is very efficient. Since it has a personal touch to it your customers would be more open to giving their suggestions. Be it any kind of relationship, clear communication is the most important feature to have.
4. Follow-up is the best!
Imagine you have bought a new mobile phone and the next day you get a call from the customer service department of the mobile company to see if the product has lived up to your expectations. Wouldn’t you feel contented? Or you got a coupon to redeem and you tried using it. You went to the shop once, but the product was out of stock. After a few days, you have forgotten all about it and you get a call from the company asking why you haven’t used the coupon yet. Wouldn’t you be impressed? That is the power of follow-up. Whether it is done after sales or after using the coupon or because of some inactivity in your account, it has the power to boost customer loyalty. The added bonus is that follow-up is done immediately, which guarantees more fresh and accurate feedback. Follow-up is like the spine of the customer feedback system. You go back to your customer after every touchpoint and altogether rates the customer experience.
5. Collect feedback while it’s fresh
You want to assist your customer all along the way and collect feedback through every step? Then this is the way to go. This is the age of ‘instant’. From food to clothes, everybody wants everything instantly. Research companies are looking for all the things that they could make instantly. Collecting feedback and providing customer support as the customers are experiencing your product is truly one of the best ways to collect feedback. Many that you had turned for advice would have told you about this. The customer feedback system can be stated as a success only if the response rates are progressing.
Live bots are there throughout many sites to make the customer experience seamless. If you are asking the feedback right after the assistance, the timing is perfect. This conversational style of feedback process helps to understand the challenges faced by the customers as and when it occurs. This would help to form customer profiles too. You would be able to study the needs and demands of customers individually. You could set the live chat to pop up automatically. Studies show that this increases the chance of customers utilizing chat support by 300%
6. Monitor Social Media
Social media channels are an invaluable source of information that you need to tap into. More than a few would have asked your company’s official Facebook account or Twitter account. Adobe posts art that has been created using Adobe software through their Instagram account. This increases the value of the brand and your customers would be more than happy to give their suggestions on the page. Your presence in the social media and how you handle it is going to be judged by your customers. You would be able to look into what is being said behind your back through these social media sites. 96% of the unhappy customers voice their dissatisfaction to their friends and family. You get to do a reality check about your company and the services provided through these social media pages. You could leverage this to monitor your competitor too. Uncover where your competitor is better than you, where they lack. This information would be beneficial while planning your next strategy.
Moreover, more than 80 percent of the people in a study said they trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations. Now isn’t that something you should think about? Create a positive online presence and keep a close watch on your customers.
7. Ask without interruption
Comment boxes and suggestion boxes are the silent components in the customer feedback system. This doesn’t mean they lack something. They are perfect for you to collect the information you need without causing any interruption to your customers’ experience. After all, isn’t providing the flawless customer experience with our primary goal? They are conveniently placed at the bottom part of certain pages. This enables the customer to give detailed feedback and to clarify certain doubts they had. Giving comment boxes on different pages would help you to analyze the entire experience as parts rather than the whole. That is the right way to collect feedback. There might be certain aspects where you excelled or where you did poorly. Only if you ask as parts you would be able to identify it. The overall experience could overshadow either something you did right or something you did wrong. Asking feedback after the order confirmation page is an excellent option where you could divide the feedback form into different parts and ask the customer to rate it. Since the customers have already done what they came in for, they wouldn’t feel annoyed and would be happy to fill it out.
8. Use polls for a higher response rate!
If done right, polls can garner a higher response rate. It is short and sweet like everything great. But it can backfire if not done right. They are mini surveys that carry the simplest of questions. Social media is something that people uses for recreational purposes. If you try to sneak in serious and time-consuming questions they are going to leave altogether. They might even annoy your customers. Be careful when you choose questions and make it fun. You should also show your customer that you are listening too. You could ask them to select the color of the next product or the sort of packaging they want etc. McDonald conducted a poll on Twitter to find out which of the $2 menu items are popular with their customers. These polls conducted across social channels helps to informally engage your customers with fun questions. Posting instant results motivates the customers to participate.
9. Offering a little something
Well, if you are sending out a survey to your customer, he has to spend his time to fill them out. Some long survey takes at least 20 to 30 minutes from your customer. To motivate them to finish the survey, you could offer small rewards. This would guarantee that the survey wouldn’t get abandoned half the way. Survey dropout rates are very high when it is done for free. Rewards can be in the form of free shipping and discounts for future purchases. It could also be free samples, gift cards, or entry ticket to a contest etc. Keep in mind that the reward should be valuable for the customer rather than a cross-sell.
The danger is that many might think this a bribe to get positive feedback. Let the honesty come through to your customer. It is given as a compensation for the time and effort taken by the participant, not the other way around.
10. Create an online community
If done right, this could become the core of your customer feedback system. It is the best practice and is going to be immensely helpful to your company in the long run. As the community goes, customer loyalty increases. This gives you the perfect opportunity to nourish the feeling of oneness in your customers. From us and you, it becomes we. They wouldn’t bother to complain about your product elsewhere but here. In this space that you have created virtually for your customers would be the best customer support strategy there ever could be. Many successful companies like Harley Davidson boasts such online communities, where their customers could chat with other users of the same product and support each other.
You would be able to watch your customers even closer with minimum interruption from you. Only when a problem is unsolvable by them, you will have to interfere. You would be able to identify key features that are accepted and that are rejected even without asking a single question.
This platform also enables you to conduct events and workshops or even tutorials to make the customer experience more pleasant. You would also be able to see how they are being used. It’s a win-win with hardly anything that could go wrong. All the information you need is right there in a defined space for you to utilize.
Wrapping up!
The customer feedback system is something that you shouldn’t look at as an annual event. It should run like a well-oiled machine. Consistency is the key to get it right. You might get tired of listening to tips that are very similar. It might look simpler than it is from the outside. If not done well, it could be the reason behind your failure. Find the pulse of your customers and give them what they need the way they need it. Businesses are flourishing everywhere and you cannot risk everything thinking they would like the product in a certain way. When you have a way, why don’t you use it? You have been tired of listening to these 10 things about customer feedback system, now its time to act on it!
