Feedback is one of the most valuable resources for any business. Informational messages from your customers can say a lot about your company. They are a way to see if your strategies are paying off and a chance to know what parts of your business need updating.

Your customers’ reviews and testimonials can help you better understand your audience and what solution you’re looking for.

Getting customer feedback also increases your chances of gaining more customers in the long run. Brands with superior customer service generate more profit than their competitors.

Of course, before you start tackling challenges like extracting trends from feedback or using your reviews to update your business, you have an essential task to consider: how can you get the valuable information your customers need to share?

There are several ways to do this. You can contact customers individually by email or set up a feedback form on your website. You might even consider working with a review site to give your audience more options.

Today, Brandup shows you the steps you can take to get your customer’s feedback right.

 

Unlock the benefits of customer feedback

Customer feedback is information and input shared by your community. It provides a behind-the-scenes look at people’s interactions with your team and shows you where you need to focus to start generating new opportunities.

Customer feedback becomes a guiding compass for your organization when used correctly. Shows what’s getting right and wrong from the customer’s perspective. Positive feedback can become part of your marketing campaigns. User-provided content in the form of reviews and testimonials is an excellent tool to encourage new people to buy your products.

Case studies and in-depth customer analytics can also help build trust among potential customers, so you’re more likely to get crucial sales.

Despite all the good marketing campaigns you can do, you can only get people’s trust with good opinions from other people.

On average, buyers read about seven reviews before even considering trusting a company.

The good news is that about two-thirds of customers will share their personal information with a brand. Customers are happy to provide feedback under the right circumstances. Your job is to make sure the process is as easy as possible for your customers.

So how can you get customer reviews?

 

1. Create an effective feedback survey

The most obvious way to encourage feedback from your customers is to ask. Unfortunately, creating a good customer survey isn’t always as simple as it sounds.

On the one hand, you want to get as much information from your customer as possible, which can mean asking a lot of questions. On the other hand, asking too many questions can easily scare your audience away.

To improve your audience’s chances of actually sharing information, keep feedback requests as simple as possible.

One or two questions at a time should be enough to provide some useful information about the customer’s preferences and expectations. When choosing what to include in your survey, remember:

• Only ask essential questions: if answering a question won’t help you achieve your goals, don’t ask. You don’t need to know a person’s age if you want to know if they had a good experience with your service. Keep it relevant.
• Ask the Thoughtful Questions: Yes or no questions are great for quick information. However, if you want more valuable feedback, leave your questions open and give customers space to explain themselves.
• Use rating scales: If your customer doesn’t have the time to answer a question in your survey with a complete answer, a rating scale can provide some useful information with minimal customer effort.

Make sure none of the questions in your survey are pre-selected. Customers don’t want to feel like you’re answering questions for them. It can also be worth showing your audience how much you value their information with a quick response. When you receive feedback, thank it and respond as soon as possible.

It might also be interesting for customers to see how their reviews contribute to the company’s overall rating.

 

2. Master your emails and customer contact forms

Email is one of the easiest and most effective ways to get feedback from customers. As this is a standard support channel for most companies, there are many opportunities to generate feedback.

The first step to using emails for feedback is sending a thank you message to the customer for their recent interaction with your brand. If someone has purchased a product from your company, follow up immediately to let them know you appreciate their purchase. A few days later, when your customer has the opportunity to use your product or service, that’s when you should submit your feedback request.

Ideally, your email request should be as short and direct as possible, with a clear call to action that tells your customer what to do next.

If you want to increase your opportunities to get feedback, you can add elements to your email that can encourage a positive response, for example:

• Remind them what they bought: Remind your customer of the product they bought with a picture and a little bit of information. Highlight the main features and benefits of this product so they have some inspiration for what to write in your review.
• Offer a reward: If you want to increase your chances of your customers doing something for you, you need to offer something in return. This could be a discount on your next order, a chance to win something, or even free shipping on your next purchase.
• Personalize the message: Make your customer feel special by personalizing the message. Use their name and reference past interactions with your brand. If they’ve been on your brand for a while, mention this in the email.

Keep in mind that many of your customers are likely to check your emails on the go. That means giving feedback should be as simple as possible, no matter what technology your customer is using.

 

3. Create usability tests for the application/online store

If you want detailed information about your company and its business processes, a usability test can be the best way to get valuable feedback. If you have your app, ask your customer to send some information directly there, after they finish using your service.

Unlike other customer reviews that can take place a day or two after a customer has used a product, usability tests allow you to get feedback in the moment. There is a much better chance of getting some relevant and detailed answers that way.

Giving your customers options they can choose from reduces the amount of work they need to do to leave a review. It also means you can get information about which parts of your app or website need improvement.

You can also get the same kind of instant feedback on your website, especially if you’re using a live chat app for customer service.

Live chat is easily becoming an essential part of the user experience environment because it is fast, easy to use and efficient. It is also highly accessible for most businesses thanks to the evolution of technology. Configure your live chat application to immediately request a review from your customer when the interaction is over.

 

4. Conduct customer interviews

Conducting a customer interview is a lot like sending a survey. The main difference is that it asks the client to engage in a much deeper conversation. Typically, these interviews will be the initial research needed for a case study published on a B2B website.

Reaching valuable and loyal customers can provide a fantastic source of detailed information to learn from. You will need to make sure you have a good relationship with the customer in question before attempting this. Most occasional clients will not want to be involved in a lengthy interview.

View your CRM and find out who your VIP customers are. Contact them with a request for feedback and be sure to offer something in return. For example, tell them you’d like to interview them for a case study that can be displayed on your website. If they are happy to do so, you can reward them with a discount on their next purchase or some gifts.

When soliciting long-form qualitative feedback, remember to think carefully about your questions. Detailed customer stories bring nuance and color to your quantitative data. They can even guide your company to make some crucial future decisions.

When talking to your customers:

• Start with an open dialogue: remember that open-ended questions are crucial to getting as much detail as possible from your customers. These queries give your customers more flexibility to cover the details of their experiences.
• Be more specific as you go: Start with simple questions, then build on them as the conversation progresses. Use what you learn from your customers to dig deeper into topics that are relevant to them. For example, if a customer mentions your chat app, get into a deeper discussion about which channels they prefer to use.
• Actively listen: make sure you are open and receptive to the information you are given. Listen carefully to customers, even if you don’t agree, acknowledging what they say and providing valuable responses.

 

5. Use social networks

Sometimes people reject giving feedback to your business on your website because they are not in the right frame of mind. When customers come to your site, there’s a good reason they’re looking for information from you or want to check out a new product.

They’re probably not in the right mood to start sharing their opinions.

However, if you capture your customers on social media, there’s a good chance they’ll feel much more willing to communicate. After all, social media platforms are where most customers discuss their issues with companies, talk shopping with friends, and make their voices heard.

Simply paying attention when people talk about your business on social media can provide a lot of helpful feedback.

If you’re getting feedback on social media, remember not to ask too complicated questions. While people are more willing to share their opinions this way, they are still looking for a relatively relaxed and casual experience.

Surveys, where people can vote for their preferences with a single click, are more likely to generate engagement than a post asking them to talk about the best shopping experience they’ve ever had with your brand.

If you want to encourage more in-depth feedback, the best option is to promise a reward in exchange for your follower’s effort.

Make the experience fun by turning it into a competition.

For example, ask your customers to share their favorite story involving your brand for a chance to win a prize. You can ask each customer to tag their answer with a branded hashtag so that relevant answers are easier to find. You can even ask users to tag their friends in posts, to increase brand reach while getting feedback:

With gifts and rewards to encourage them, people are much more likely to interact with your brand and put effort into the reviews they leave. You can even gather some user-generated content to put in your subsequent ad campaigns.

 

6. Create a dedicated page on the site

Finally, if you want to make it as simple as possible for people to leave comments on your site and to get all that information in one space, create a reviews page on your site. This can serve as social proof for people who need additional evidence to buy from your brand.

A reviews page can be as simple as a page that lists the most recent comments your customers have left. You can include a form at the bottom of the page where people can add their thoughts about your brand.

You can also create a case study or portfolio page that showcases work you’ve done with other companies.

At the bottom of each case study, provide your customers with a unique email address that they can contact if they want to be featured as a case study next. Or include a contact form where people can get in touch to discuss their own experiences.

Having a page dedicated to reviews or case studies on your website can be enough to inspire more feedback from other customers. It’s also a fantastic way to demonstrate your company’s credibility to potential buyers.

 

Still struggling?

If, even with all the suggestions above, you still can’t convince your audience to give you decent feedback, then take it out of the equation. It is possible to learn about your audience without asking for information. Google Analytics and other tools provide valuable insights into which pages on your site get the most views and how many people click individual buttons across your site.

These fundamental insights. They may not be as good as contextual and valuable feedback from your audience, but they are a great way to start figuring out how to invest in your future growth.

Remember that any kind of feedback – even if it’s just statistics and numbers – gives your business the ability to grow and make informed decisions.

Gather as much feedback as possible and be sure to use it!