What is customer feedback?

Customer feedback is information given to establishments, companies, products, or services by customers who have met or have not met their requirements. It is probably the most reliable source of information about the quality of a company.

Your customer’s opinions are a valuable resource for improving customer experience and adjusting your actions to fit their needs. The role of customer feedback is clearly understood by top-performing companies. They make a conscious effort to listen to the voices of their clients.

To stay ahead of the competition, you should never stop listening to customer feedback, regardless of whether they are negative or positive.

 

Why is good feedback important?

Good feedback is a powerful indicator that can give your team insights to chart new paths for your organisation to take. Paths that may affect product, brand, or service, and even customer support that is vital when it comes to customer satisfaction.

It is important because it can serve as your guide if what you’re doing is right, or wrong. Who else can point this out to you but your customers? Within the good and bad feedback, you can find nuggets that make it easier for you to adjust and adapt to customer experience.

The clear indication of why good feedback is important is that positive reviews make customers trust a business more. Needless to say, a business with excellent reviews gets high conversion rates. More so, satisfied customers refer a product or service to their friends and family, which broadens your reach further.

In a nutshell, good customer feedback drives customer growth. The happier your clients are, chances of them staying loyal to your brand. It also helps you attract new clients through referrals and recommendations.

 

Good feedback is crucial.

A good review or feedback is a cause for celebration. Though it is just as important to receive negative or bad feedback, it is doubly crucial to receive positive or good feedback.

Good feedback builds trust. Trust for your establishment, your product, your services, and your brand. In a 2017 report by Microsoft said that 56% of customers have stopped doing business with a brand due to poor customer service. So it is vital to analyse customer feedback to understand what drives customer satisfaction.

 

Methods to promote good feedback.

So how can you get feedback? Likely, customers are not that interested or worn out by the sheer number of unread emails and texts on their phones. Consider the following:

 

1.    Ask them on-site and/or during the interaction.

Instead of sending an automated survey request via email or text, encourage your staff to ask your customers directly. A personal touch goes a long way. People are more responsive to a request from a person than from an impersonal email.

Also, asking for a review while the activity is fresh in your customer’s mind is best. Good memories get more out-of-focus with every minute that passes. If it’s presently not feasible to talk at the moment, ask them to visit a specific site and write a quick review with their phone.

The act of verbally asking is enough to get people inspired.

 

2.  Respond positively.

If you aim to get good feedback, lead the example by responding positively.

Even if you are responding to a negative review from someone with less than 100 followers, you should always make an effort to respond, positively.

Responding to negative reviews positively shows you are taking responsibility for their dissatisfaction, and it can bring a turnaround in customer opinion. More than that, Google says that responding to reviews shows that you value your customers and their feedback.

You don’t need to be there 24/7, just strive to be responsive when you can be, the sooner, the better.

 

3.  Social Media.

Social media gives you access to an otherwise untapped reservoir of candid feedback from customers. Getting the community involved will be the most effective if your following frequently interacts with your posts.

For example, ask your followers to show how they use your product. Have them tag their post with a relative hashtag. Their post now serves as feedback, a positive one. It can now potentially attract more customers to purchase your product.

To move it even further, you can turn it into a contest. Offer a prize that’s relevant to your audience. Just set the basic requirements for entry, emphasising posting and spreading it through social media.

 

4.  Display positive reviews.

If you’ve heard the idiom that says “the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” that makes online reviews so powerful. Having people try out what you offer and getting proof that your claim is true, validates not only your product but your brand.

But the benefits of social proof do not stop there. Reviewtrackers showed that consumers will still think positively of companies or services with positive reviews. They would still think that way even if those reviews are later disputed as inaccurate.

 

5.  Optimise your customer service experience.

It begins with excellent customer service. The most important factor to consider in whether your customer leaves reviews or not, or what kind of reviews they leave, is the quality of your business.

People do recommend products or services they appreciate. Whether they leave reviews online or through word-of-mouth.

By providing quality products and/or services, many of your customers will be more than happy to give positive reviews for your business.

Do you look at reviews online before purchasing or availing of a service? If you’re a business owner, do you provide your customers with an easy way to review your services? Do check out “The Lab” for more tips and tricks.