You are thoroughly convinced that market research is a great thing and extremely important to undertake. But despite this fact, you also need to consider that it doesn’t have the same impact on your bottom line and your team’s happiness and contentment as customer feedback does – that is when you apply the right kind of machinery to achieve customer feedback.
So, you put into place a wonderful customer feedback system. But can you also transform that information into something you can act upon? All of us intelligent beings realize that customer insights are instrumental to better our product designs and improve considerably apart from growing and making more money. Hence, there is a need to look at some customer feedback apps that aid in developing a strategy and help in enhancing the product.
To cater to employee morale and improve customer satisfaction, all you need to do is follow some really simple steps and you’ll have a ready list of customer insights you can act upon with utmost confidence and panache.
1. Go right ahead and ask for it!
The best way to garner more information and user feedback is by simply asking for it. Make sure you’re using the right tools, the correct feedback apps to manage the vast data. Or get comprehensive reports and deep insights of your customer feedback data through online surveys like Zonka which is not only interactive builds the base for future actions.
Go through the feedback and understand how varied the responses are. If for the same set of queries, each customer is giving you very different feedback, you’ll likely have to consider a higher volume of feedback in order to gather insights that matter and make it actionable. But in case a lot of feedback relates to just one or two issues in your product, then it obviously means that you have a lot less work to do!
2. Collate data and communicate
You need to prioritize and collate all the open-ended customer feedback using the right kind of customer feedback system. Attributes such as the duration of the person being a customer, their average spends, a date on which the feedback was submitted, and the source of the feedback need to be recorded and collated. Also, customer feedback can help you know more about the flaws in your business. The customers wish to be heard and respected for their opinions and ideas they intend to share with you. The best-laid feedback apps are intuitive and are most effective when the entire company gets all the data collated and collected while at the same time listens and responds to the voice of the customer. There are various feedback apps that make the process easier than it sounds. Apart from that, the apps help gather the information with a human touch.
3. Engage users to take feedback
Have you ever wondered why do certain customers refrain from answering a 20-question survey and feel like a pedestrian? Lack of personalization, tailored questions and recognition are some of the factors for this behavior.
The solution to this problem lies in a simple step. Launch a series of shorter surveys, address loyal customers with conversational language and communicate that their time and business matters to you in a friendly manner.
Send them simple questions coupled with few emoticons and multiple choice answers and enjoy the real, actionable results from these customer feedback surveys.
4. Position the survey methods well – reduce barriers
We need to understand that positioning matters the most. The quality, as well as the quantity of feedback, can both be augmented if there are lesser barriers and the feedback queries are positioned in the correct fashion. Whatever the tool, it works wonders if we can manage to get feedback the very moment a user faces issues. And if you take into consideration the user’s viewpoint, they feel that their grievances are taken care of and this easily turns a negative situation into a positive one. With just the right kind of positioning, a real-time feedback can be obtained which more often than not is complete while at the same time lets us understand the customer better.
5. Make feedback a beautiful experience
Just think about it. Who would want to fill a tacky looking form that is 6 pages long? Try to keep your feedback forms short and sweet. Pay special attention to the layout and branding of the feedback survey, add your logo and color scheme. The design of the feedback form is the first encounter of the customer with the survey. It acts as a silent ambassador for your brand so make sure it gets your customers for the first time. Some points to keep in mind while designing feedback forms:
personalize your surveys and keep a conversational tone.
Here’s an example of one such powerful employee survey template survey by Zonka
An interactive app that is engaging and beautifully-laid out makes a lot of difference and doesn’t force the customer to think too much. The completion rates get better if you can manage to keep people’s attention from start to submit with a beautiful, friendly, and engaging form.
6. Understand customer insights for better growth
Generating insights from data that is present before you is a vital, iterative process. Testing and learning, adding innovative methodologies as well as re-engineering ways to generate insights are crucial to finding new growth. You need to comprehend your customer’s pain points, positive experiences as well as ways to improve incessantly.
7. Team up to better customer satisfaction
When it all boils down to improving customer satisfaction, doing customer feedback correctly undoubtedly delivers huge returns on investment. A good feedback program coupled with teamwork can move mountains. Studies reveal that teams that have managed to handle customers’ complaints have gained loyal customers that have even turned into brand advocates. So it’s easy to understand how profitable it is to rope in your team to resolve customer issues before it gets too huge to handle.
8. Let feedback make your strength your superpower
A positive feedback has more power in encouraging you and on your strength than the negative feedback that focuses on your weakness and scope of improvement. In short, next time a customer compliments on your store décor or exceptional service by one of your wait staff, pay close attention to those key points and deliberately use them more for a better customer service and inspiring your other store elements or other staff members. However, all said and done there is one step that you cannot let go of even if you have automated the entire process of collecting customer feedback and that is FOLLOWING-UP! Putting customer feedback into spreadsheets and never using it is pointless. Actually reading the critic and replying or taking action on it goes a long way in building a strong relationship.
Once you gather customer feedback, it’s important to use that information to address specific challenges. The action you take is what makes the customer feedback truly powerful. For example, if your customers are constantly bringing up pricing as an issue and you don’t change it, your customers will switch to your competitors. Also, communicating the improvements/alterations back to your customers is vital, after all, they should feel that they are being heard which will also encourage them to convey their feelings even more often via feedbacks.
