Are You Listening? 4 Ways You Can Better Collect and Respond to Customer Feedback

Are You Listening? 4 Ways You Can Better Collect and Respond to Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is vital to any company. If your customers don’t feel heard and valued, they’ll take their business elsewhere and leave your business suddenly floundering. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way. Offering some simple yet effective ways for customers to offer feedback can ensure that you stay on top of the game.

Conduct Surveys

Surveys are a classic and effective method of gathering customer feedback. The right questions can elicit clear answers about what your customers enjoy about doing business with you and what they don’t. You can try long-form surveys sent after they’ve done business with you, with clear and precise questions related to their most recent experience with your company. Or you can experiment with short-form in-app surveys that are presented immediately after a specific action is taken to determine why that action was taken. For example, if a customer cancels their subscription, an immediate survey can help you determine the reason.

You can require an email address in order to provide a response to the feedback you receive, but customers may not respond and follow up with you.

Offer an Open Communication Channel

There’s nothing more frustrating than getting an answer to a question that requires follow-up to understand and act on the suggestion. That’s why a two-way messaging app can be an ideal method of collecting feedback. With a two-way messaging app, your customers can offer feedback and you can reach back out to them immediately to ask more questions and get clarity on exactly what they did or didn’t enjoy about their experience with you. A two-way messaging app, like Rake, also offers more privacy so that your customer can feel comfortable being more honest and offering more in-depth feedback.

Request Feedback in Confirmation Emails

Order confirmation pages and transactional emails are two other sources of feedback. After an online purchase, your customers will usually expect a confirmation email. In this email, you can include a link where they can provide feedback about the purchasing process. Additionally, they might expect another confirmation email once your product has been delivered to them. This is another opportunity to provide them with a link for giving feedback about the product or any other information. 

Create a Suggestions Board

A suggestions board allows customers to make suggestions for things they’d like to see. Other customers can then “like” or otherwise vote for their favorite suggestions so you can see which things matter most to your customers. This can be a great way to easily see what customers agree on. If a suggestions board isn’t quite what you want, there are other online communities you can create that can have a similar effect, such as social media groups or other forums.

Listening to your customers and responding to their feedback is vital to the success of any business. Finding the method that is most effective for your business will improve communication and make your customers feel like they’re truly valued by your business.