Customer feedback or voice of customer (VoC) is not just important for your business. It is also important for their other clients (potential or current) as well. For example, 98% of buyers read online reviews before making a purchase decision. Or, 82% of people trust customer feedback more than messages that come from the brand.
In this article, we’ll explore the importance of customer feedback, its role in improving what businesses offer, and how it drives satisfaction and loyalty. We’ll also delve into various methods of collecting different types of feedback and discuss the best practices for analyzing and acting upon the gathered insights.
What is customer feedback?
Customer feedback refers to the opinions, comments, and suggestions that customers provide about their experiences with a product, service, or brand.
It is important to note that feedback not just a mere collection of opinions; it is a valuable source of insights that can help your business understand customers’ needs, their preferences, pain points, and satisfaction levels.
Why is the importance of customer feedback?
Customer feedback is important for several reasons. It helps you understand their customers, improve their offerings, drive innovation, build strong customer relationships, and more.
By valuing and acting upon them, businesses can achieve long-term success and maintain a competitive edge in the market.
What are the benefits of customer feedback?
By understanding the importance of customer feedback, it’s easy to realize its benefits for businesses as well.
In addition to well-known advantages for businesses such as improved customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and valuable market insights, customer feedback benefits also include:
Enhanced product development
The voice of customers provides valuable insights into what they like or dislike about a product. It helps your team identify areas for improvement, make informed decisions about new features, and develop products that better align with customer needs.
Improved brand reputation
Positive feedback, such as online reviews and testimonials, can significantly enhance your brand’s reputation. It serves as social proof, influencing prospective customers’ purchasing decisions and attracting new customers.
Proactive issue resolution
Customer feedback can reveal potential issues or pain points that may have gone unnoticed. By addressing these concerns promptly and effectively, businesses can prevent negative experiences, reduce customer churn, and maintain a positive brand image.
Competitive advantage
Businesses that actively seek and respond to feedback differentiate themselves from competitors. By consistently improving their offerings based on customer insights, you can stand out in the market and attract people who appreciate their customer-centric approach.
Innovation and growth
Customer feedback often contains suggestions and ideas for new products, services, or features. Therefore, through listening, you can drive innovation and stay ahead of the curve, leading to growth and new opportunities.
Types of customer feedback
There are several types of customer feedback that you can collect:
Direct (active) vs. indirect (passive) feedback
Indirect feedback refers to feedback that is not provided directly to your business but can still be obtained through monitoring social media, online reviews, or third-party websites. It provides valuable data about customer sentiment, preferences, and experiences.
Active feedback is provided directly through channels such as surveys or feedback forms, customer support interactions, or emails. It can include comments, suggestions, complaints, or compliments.
These two are the main types of customer feedback.
Structured vs. unstructured feedback
Structured feedback involves using predefined questionnaires or rating scales to collect feedback. This type often offers quantitative data for easier analysis and comparison.
On the other hand, unstructured feedback is open-ended and doesn’t have a decided format. It allows customers to provide feedback in their own words, expressing their thoughts, opinions, or experiences in a more detailed and subjective manner.
Positive vs. negative feedback
Positive feedback refers to feedback that highlights the aspects of a product, service, or overall experience that customers appreciate and find satisfactory. It can include compliments, testimonials, or positive online reviews.
Negative feedback, however, points out areas of improvement or issues that customers have encountered. It can include complaints, suggestions for improvement, or negative online reviews.
Product-specific vs. service-specific vs. experience-based feedback
Product-specific feedback focuses specifically on the features, functionality, or quality of a product. It provides insights into how customers perceive and use the product. It can help your business make improvements or prioritize product development efforts.
Service-specific feedback pertains to the customer service experience, including interactions with support representatives, response times, problem resolution, or overall service satisfaction. It helps you understand how customer support efforts are perceived and identify areas for improvement.
There’s also experience-based feedback, which focuses on the customer journey and experience with your brand. It encompasses various touchpoints and interactions, from initial contact to post-purchase support, and provides insights into the effectiveness of processes, communication, and overall satisfaction.
What are customer feedback methods?
How to collect customer feedback depends on your business’s goals and target audience. Combining multiple methods can provide a comprehensive view of VoC and help drive improvements in your products, services, and overall customer experience.
That being said, there are several methods of collecting feedback that your business can utilize:
Online surveys
Conducting online surveys is a popular method to collect feedback. These surveys can be distributed through email, social media, or embedded on websites (like pop-ops or forms). Tools like SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, or Typeform can be used to create and distribute surveys easily.
Social media listening
Monitoring social media platforms for mentions, comments, and direct messages can provide valuable insights into customer opinions and feedback. Social media listening tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social help tracking and analyzing these interactions.
Feedback communities
Creating online communities or forums dedicated to gathering customer feedback allows you to engage directly with your customer base. These communities provide a platform for customers to share suggestions and concerns to foster a sense of collaboration.
Customer feedback apps
Mobile apps specifically designed for collecting feedback can be used to gather real-time insights. These apps often include features like in-app surveys, ratings, and reviews. Examples include Delighted, SurveySparrow, or GetFeedback.
Live chat and chatbots
Implementing live chat on websites or using chatbots allows your organization to engage with customers in real-time and gather feedback during their interactions. Chat platforms like Intercom or Drift offer such functionalities.
Online review platforms
Monitoring and analyzing customer reviews on platforms like Google Reviews, Yelp, or Trustpilot can provide valuable feedback. These platforms often have built-in analytics to track and analyze customer sentiments.
Voice of the customer analytics
VoC analytics tools help your business collect and analyze feedback from various channels, such as surveys, social media, and customer support interactions. These tools use natural language processing and sentiment analysis to extract insights and identify trends from feedback.
Customer feedback loop (managing the data)
The customer feedback loop is a continuous process that involves collecting, analyzing, and acting upon feedback to improve overall experience. A Complete loop consists of these key steps:
- Collecting feedback
- Analyzing feedback
- Prioritizing feedback
- Taking action
- Communicating changes
- Gathering feedback on changes
- Closing the loop
1. Collecting feedback
The first step is to actively gather feedback from customers through the various channels mentioned earlier.
2. Analyzing feedback
Once the feedback is collected, you need to analyze it to identify patterns, trends, and key insights. This involves categorizing feedback, conducting sentiment analysis, and using data analytics tools to extract meaningful information.
3. Prioritizing feedback
After analyzing, you need to prioritize the issues or suggestions based on their impact on customer satisfaction and business goals. This helps determine which feedback should be addressed first.
4. Taking action
Acting on the prioritized issues involves implementing improvements based on the feedback. This can include updating products, services, processes, or changing communication strategies to address any concerns or meet customer needs better.
5. Communicating changes
It is essential to communicate the changes or improvements made based on customer feedback to show that their feedback has been heard and acted upon. Your team can do this through email updates, social media posts, website announcements, or other relevant channels.
6. Gathering feedback on changes
After implementing changes, it is important to gather feedback again to assess their effectiveness. This helps your business understand if the changes have positively impacted on customer satisfaction and if any further adjustment is needed.
7. Closing the loop
The final step is closing the loop by providing customers with updates on how their feedback has been used and the outcomes of the changes made. This helps maintain transparency and reinforces the value placed on customer feedback.
How to improve your customer feedback strategy?
To improve your customer feedback strategy, consider the following steps:
- Clearly define objectives: Clearly define the objectives of your customer feedback strategy. Determine what specific insights you want to gather, such as improving product features, addressing customer service issues, or enhancing the overall customer experience.
- Choose the right feedback channels: Select the most relevant and effective feedback channels based on your target audience and the nature of your business. Consider using a combination of online surveys, social media listening, feedback apps, and other feedback collection methods to reach a wider customer base.
- Keep surveys short and simple: Make surveys concise and easy to complete. Avoid overwhelming customers with multiple questions or complex forms. Focus on gathering the most important information and ensure that the survey can be completed within a few minutes.
- Use personalization: Personalize your feedback requests to make them more engaging and relevant to each customer. Address them by their names and incorporate any relevant information you have about their preferences.
Integrate feedback collection with other marketing efforts
Customer feedback is a valuable asset for any business striving to provide exceptional products and services. It not only helps to enhance the quality and functionality of your products but also allows tailoring services to better suit customers’ unique requirements.
Intelligent customer survey is one of the main features of our innovative customer engagement solution, EngagePackage, which seamlessly collects and refines important data in a robust platform. Find more information on its respective page in the “Features” category.
