The opinions of your customers are important; they can tell you what they love about your business and they can also tell you what areas need improvement. So, collecting customer feedback is necessary if you want to increase customer retention and grow your business.
Many of your customers aren’t going to call you up or send you an email to tell you their thoughts. But, a lot of them will take to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to voice their opinions. And you can use that to your advantage.
Here’s how to collect customer feedback on social media.
Ask Questions and Monitor the Comments
One of the easiest and quickest ways to collect customer feedback on social media is by simply asking questions to your followers. People love to share their opinions so most of your followers will be happy to chime in when you ask.
So, create a status or tweet (depending on the social media platform you’re using) asking a question to your audience. You could ask your followers what their favorite feature of your software is or what feature is missing, what cut or color they’d prefer for an article of clothing, or ask them what they think of your customer support. Whatever question you ask, in an instant, you should get a flood of comments. Monitor the comments and take note of what people are saying so you can take their thoughts into consideration. It’s important to put your customer feedback to use when you receive it; it will make your customers feel valued and they’ll be more likely to provide their feedback the next time you ask too.
Create Polls and Surveys
Aside from creating a status to ask customers what they think, many social media platforms offer polling or survey features you can use to collect customer feedback. For example, you can create a poll with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram Stories, just to name a few. Social media polls offer your followers a more fun way to provide your business with feedback and you can instantly see which option your customers prefer instead of having to sift through comments.
If you have a survey on your website, you can also get your followers on social media to participate in it by sharing the link to it. The downside to Facebook or Instagram polls is that you can only ask one question at a time. But by creating a survey on your website and sharing the link on social media, you can get feedback from your customers on a number of different topics at once.
Use a Facebook Messenger Chatbot
Many consumers today expect to be able to get in contact with a business 24/7 and they also expect lightning fast customer service. That’s why so many businesses are offering customer service via social media. And since they can’t be available day and night to answer questions, they use Facebook Messenger chatbots to answer customer inquiries for them. Besides providing convenient customer service, a Facebook Messenger chatbot can also be used to collect customer feedback.
When customers chat with your Facebook Messenger chatbot about issues they’re having, you can use that information to determine weak areas of business. You can also use a Facebook Messenger chatbot to ask survey questions to customers. For instance, an eCommerce business that sells a wide range of items can find out what type of products your customers are most interested in.
Plus, using a Facebook Messenger chatbot won’t only help you collect valuable customer feedback, it also helps you build stronger relationships with your customers. According to statistics, being able to chat with a business makes people feel more positive about the business (63%), that the business cares about them (59%), and more likely to trust the business (55%).
Use Social Media Listening Tools
Guess what? You aren’t limited to just the conversations that are going on in the comment section of your own social media accounts. With social media listening tools you can find out what people are saying about your company all over social media—even if they’re not following you. That’s right, you can collect valuable customer feedback from your customers even if they aren’t sending you their feedback directly.
Social media listening tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social, and others allow you to track brand mentions across numerous social media platforms. For instance, if a customer tweets about your business without tagging you, the social media listening tool will find it for you so you can see what people are saying about your brand. Aside from just tracking your company name, with many social media listening tools you can even track brand-specific keywords. So, if your product has a feature called “The 365 Visualizer,” a social media listening tool can pick up specific mentions of that feature too.
Over to You
Remember, once you collect all of this valuable customer feedback on social media, it’s your job to put that feedback to good use. When you take your customer feedback and put it into action, it will show your customers that you care about them and it will help you improve your business.