By Frontline Group
December 28, 2022
Customers are your most valuable asset – and if you want to stay ahead of the competition, you’ll need to ensure that they’re happy with what they receive from your business.
Getting customers to leave feedback is a great way to improve business. It allows customers to share their thoughts, feelings, and opinions about products, services, or experiences. This can help improve the quality of your products and services and inform you where improvements should be made along the customer journey.
Collecting customer feedback isn’t easy — you have to be willing to ask questions and listen closely. In this article, we’ll go through the various ways to gather customer feedback for your business.
Customer Feedback Through User Experience Testing
User testing is a great way to learn how customers feel through a structured process. You can use it to help improve your products and services by understanding how people use them, what they like, and what they don’t like. It’s also a helpful tool for learning how your target audience uses your website or app, which can help you create the right design and messaging for each stage of the process.
User testing involves asking customers to complete tasks using your products or service. You might ask them to complete a specific task on your site, such as filling out an online form or creating an online form, or you might ask them to experience a new feature on the site and provide feedback about it. It could be anything from making an online purchase to trying out a new feature on your site or app.
- Pros: Save money on development and redesign efforts
The advantage of user testing is that it’s relatively inexpensive compared to other customer feedback methods. It also lets you see what customers think of your product before buying it — which means you won’t waste money and time developing something that goes against their preferences.
- Cons: Biased results
Moderators can tell the participants what to do, which gives biased results. It interferes with the natural progression that participants would make on their own.
Using Customer Surveys
Surveys are the most common way to request feedback from your customers. When done right, they can provide helpful information and guide your business in the right direction.
Many businesses use customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys to gather how happy customers are with the products or services and how likely customers are to recommend them to others. In addition, CSAT surveys can also be used to get information about interest in new products or ideas for future developments.
Surveys can be conducted online or offline. Email surveys are free and easy to create but tend to generate fewer responses than phone-based surveys. Long surveys for more information can be conducted offline. These require more time from participants but can also provide a more accurate picture of what customers think about your brand.
- Pros: Easy for customers
One question is all that is required to conduct a customer satisfaction survey. It doesn’t require much effort from the customer and can be done through various channels.
- Cons: Subject to biased results, and response not guaranteed
CSAT surveys rely on customers to respond. Responses may be skewed depending on someone’s mood and situation. Answers are more likely to be very positive or very negative.
While a CSAT survey is relatively straightforward, many customer feedback surveys exist. Some can be difficult to create effectively if you’re not experienced in running quantitative studies.
Customer Feedback Through Emails
Email is the most popular and direct way to get customer feedback for your business. While you can easily automate this, having a person reach out is even better.
- Pros: Automated and affordable
After a transaction, meeting, or other touchpoints, have a real person reach out to your customer directly for feedback and to let them know you’re always available to chat. A customer manager’s job is to delve deeper into what the customer is going through and whether your product meets their needs.
- Cons: Response not guaranteed, 1:1 response
However, composing an email response may be more work than your customer is willing to put in. A good idea is to offer a phone number and let the customer know you’re always available to talk about it in follow-up emails. A phone number also allows customers to contact you immediately if there is a problem.
Customer Feedback Through Digital Channels
Digital channels are incredibly effective for getting customer feedback because they allow you to track what customers say about your product or service on social media, in reviews and on forums. You can also use different social media monitoring software to monitor conversations around your products and services on social media platforms.
This is a great way to find out if there are any issues with your products or services before they become problems for your customers. By doing this, you can identify which areas need improvement and fix them before the situation becomes widespread. The more you know about what people say about your products and services, the better equipped you’ll be to make improvements and keep improving in the future.
- Pros: Responses are honest and unsolicited
Unsolicited comments and reviews on your digital channels can give you an unfiltered view of your customers’ thoughts. Use social media monitoring tools to understand what your customers say and how they feel.
- Cons: Emotionally charged, difficult to quantify
While comments and reviews on your digital channels can be powerful, they are frequently emotional. In the heat of the moment, people often use these channels to complain or express concerns about a problem or service. While they may be challenging to address, ignoring them would be a mistake.
Optimize Your Customer Feedback Process With Frontline Group
Customer feedback is one of the essential tools in your arsenal, but it can take time to get right.
If you need help getting started, Frontline Group has the experience and tools to help you optimize your customer feedback process. We offer a full range of services to help you capture and analyze customer feedback, improve your customer service processes, and boost overall customer satisfaction.
We offer a full suite of services designed to help businesses collect valuable insights into their customers’ experiences with their products or services. Our services are designed to make it easy for you to gather helpful information from your customers.
If you’re interested in learning more about our services, please contact us today!
