Do you want to learn how to gather actionable feedback from your customers? If so, keep reading!
Customer feedback is one of the most important things you can get from your audience. Understanding your customers’ wants and expectations is crucial for improving your business and creating a memorable experience for every single person who decides to engage with your brand.
You will naturally build rapport with your customers by learning what they want and delivering on your promises. People are far more likely to trust you if you show that their interests and success are at the front of your mind.
You’ll also unlock valuable insights that will help you uncover your audiences’ goals, needs, and pain points, which can help you create products, content, and marketing campaigns that resonate with your intended audience.
Today, we will explore six effective strategies that you can start using to collect and benefit from customer feedback, regardless of your industry.
Let’s dive in and tackle the first topic: on-site surveys.
Include Surveys on Your Website
On-site surveys are an excellent way to gather feedback from your customers. There are plenty of different ways you can place these throughout your website and get an impressive conversion rate.
My first suggestion is to include a general survey on your blog home page and product pages that invite visitors to tell you why they are on your site. For example, an email marketing SaaS might ask customers, “How can we help you improve your email marketing strategy?”
These simple surveys will help you learn why a majority of people are visiting your site. This handy tool also allows you to easily invite readers to join your email list for more information on the topic that interests them.
It’s also a good idea to include personalized surveys on specific product landing pages. So, if a customer is looking at an expensive pair of shoes on your clothing site, you could ask, “How often do you buy new shoes?” Their answer can help you adjust your email campaigns so you reach them when they need your product the most.
If you need help making personalized surveys, look at your audience segments and try to figure out which pages, both blog and product, would be appropriate for this type of questionnaire.
Reach out to Email Subscribers
There’s no question that email is one of the best ways to connect with your audience. I believe this is why an impressive 80% of business leaders say email boosts retention and customer satisfaction.
But the thing is, you won’t get far with your email campaigns if you’re not regularly gathering feedback. I start by asking customers to share their preferences in their welcome email series so we can immediately begin to personalize the content, offers, and surveys they receive in the future.
Once we learn a little more about each person, we send them short surveys – usually two per year. These questionnaires are designed to help us learn about the goals of our readers and how we can help them succeed.
When you’re reaching out to these people, it’s important to remember that they are more likely to respond to your email if you personalize the subject line and questions based on what you know. We found that, on average, 4 out of 5 people are more likely to respond to personalized emails as opposed to ones with generic titles.
If you’re not using email to gather actionable feedback, now is the perfect time to start. You’ll be able to obtain so much helpful information from people who have already agreed to engage with your business. It’s important to remember that you can send a few of the feedback strategies we will discuss below through email!
Listen on Social Media
You may be shocked to learn that experts estimate that 4.62 billion people use social media sites every month. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are among the most popular, but places like X (formally Twitter), Pinterest, and Reddit are all proving valuable for marketers across all industries.
There are quite a few reasons for this surge in popularity, but one thing’s for sure: it’s been extremely helpful for businesses and consumers. People can now find relevant products and services without spending hours searching random keywords.
Brands can gather feedback from their audience and make changes to their social media marketing as well as other parts of their business strategy.
Communicating with customers on social media is also a great way to build trust. Around 71% of consumers say they are more likely to recommend a product to a friend or family member if they had a positive experience with the business on social media first.
Here are a few key opportunities where you might want to ask for feedback on social media:
– After a live event, such as a webinar
– When a new product launches
– After a one-on-one interaction (direct message) with your social media team
– Practice social listening by following relevant hashtags + brand mentions
– When you want general feedback on the goals and pain points of your followers.
A simple questionnaire posted on your profile is often enough to make impactful changes to your business.
Get Your Support Team Involved
You’ll have a much better chance of gathering actionable feedback if you get your customer support team involved in the process. There’s no one that talks to your audience more, so it makes sense that they should be a key place to learn about prospects and paying customers. Plus, 93% of shoppers say they’re more likely to engage with a brand if they have a positive support experience.
The way our system works is we encourage each person to answer a few questions when they get done talking to a live agent or our chatbot. The survey is only 3-5 questions but it touches on everything we need to know:
– What was the problem?
– Did we help?
– How can we do better next time?
– What would you rate your experience?
If you manage to obtain this information from a fraction of your visitors, you’ll be in a far better spot than most business owners and marketers. Strong communication with the people who care enough to reach out is a great way to build trust and show people that you’re committed to their success.
The two most common ways to administer this questionnaire is to show it directly in the chat window, or email it to users after the conversation closes.
Ask Customers to Leave Reviews
Customer reviews are a great way to learn what people think of your products and brand as a whole. It’s also a powerful strategy for building social proof. Around 93% of shoppers say user reviews play a significant role in their decision to purchase a product.
For these reasons, it’s easy to see why reviews are important for businesses and future customers.
I suggest waiting until two weeks after a product is delivered before you ask for a review. You can choose to show a popup on your website, send an email, or ask in your app (if you’re selling software).
You’ll want to go through the reviews and look for patterns. For instance, if a bunch of people are asking for the same feature, it may be time to add this function to the project roadmap so you can get it out as soon as possible.
Reviews can teach you what customers love about your brand, as well as what you could do differently. I highly recommend asking your audience to leave reviews so you can use their feedback to continuously improve and innovate.
Check Your Analytics
There’s no question that direct feedback from surveys, emails, and social media interactions is invaluable, but don’t underestimate subconscious feedback, which can be found by reviewing analytics across your website, social media, and email.
If you’re tuned in correctly, you’ll have no problem revealing hidden customer insights. For example, if one topic on your blog has a 90% bounce rate while everything else is below 50%, there’s a good chance that the subject simply doesn’t resonate with your audience.
Installing Google Analytics on your website and using premium data tools for social media can help you identify trends, patterns, and anomalies that show you create a better experience for your customers. We can all learn a lot from preferences and common behaviors buried in the data.
I recommend examining this information at least once a week so you can find new and exciting ways to improve the user experience for all of your visitors.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are plenty of effective ways you can start gathering feedback from your audience today. The strategies outlined above have helped us grow several brands over the last decade, and I’m confident you can see similar results.
Feedback loops are just as important as having a high-quality product. So, if you’re ready to improve sales, engagement, and customer trust, start thinking about ways to ask visitors and customers to share their thoughts!
