Why should you ask for client feedback?
Customer feedback is information provided by clients regarding their level of satisfaction with your product or services and their general experience with your company. Their opinion is an invaluable tool for improving your customer experience and adjusting your product or service to fit their needs. Your business depends on the opinions of your customers and if they are dissatisfied, they will surely let their friends and co-workers know! Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools and it is essential that your customers have positive sentiments to relay to others. With customers satisfaction constantly changing, it is important to ask for continuous feedback and then improve upon your product/service to keep a satisfied customer base. Spoiler alert, you can never keep every customer happy!
There is no scale that can measure the importance of client feedback. Without it, what is your company? Your customers have the ability to create or destroy your business. The power is in their hands, so make sure to listen closely to them. And if you don’t know what they think, ask!
Gaining the following information through client feedback will help you improve your products or services, measure customer satisfaction, and ultimately grow your business:
Improving Products and Services
Your product has to provide value to your clients. Giving them the opportunity to express their opinions, whether it’s solicited after a purchase or asked over the phone, will both benefit your company and show your clients that you value their opinions. When you’re at an early stage in your business, sometimes you have to guess what your clients will want out of your product or service. If you interact with your customers throughout your day-to-day business, you learn a lot about them – who they are, what they like, what they do in their spare time, etc. You can’t determine the advantages and disadvantages of your products and services until your customers have spent time interacting with it and have developed an opinion.
For businesses that have enough data to make statistically-significant business insights, keep in mind the data is only one lens to view your customers through. Your backend data might report all the numbers you are looking for, but it will never be as valuable as speaking with your customer one-on-one. Their opinions help you ensure that the end product will solve the problems at hand, and make their customer experience better.
Customer Retention
Customer feedback will help you understand exactly how your customers experience your service or product and fixing their concerns will lead to an improved client experience. Customer satisfaction leads to customer retention. Instantly giving a customer a solution to their less-than-perfect experience is an opportunity to win a client back. By increasing customer retention just five percent, a company’s profitability will increase by an average of 75 percent. Loyal clients are a benefit to any company for many reasons. Repeat customers are easier to sell to will spend more money, and promote new business.
Best Ways to Approach Client Feedback
There are a multitude of ways to gain client feedback. Whether you use a survey, email, usability test, interview, or on-site activity, you want your customers to feel valued and appreciated for the time they have given to help you out.
Start a Conversation
Be the first to reach out; everyone has an opinion and there’s nothing people love more than letting you know what they think.
Give in order to receive
The law of reciprocation says when we give we shall receive.
Ask Questions
Keep the conversation light and upbeat. Flow within the conversation will provide your customers with the comfort to answer your questions with specific examples and honest feedback. Open-ended questions will give your clients free rein in expressing their opinions. It is essential to get the customers engaged, ask enticing questions and include metrics that are easy to use. For instance, the most accurate parameter used is a 1-10 sliding scale on how likely you would recommend our product to a friend. Simple and easy questions will ease your clients into giving you the most helpful feedback possible!
How to Use Feedback as Data
Posting Customer Reviews
With recent events leading to skepticism surrounding advertising and media, customers are less likely to trust what marketers are promoting. Your informative advertising might be seen as exaggerated or over-the-top or even unbelievable. People want real opinions and reviews from real people like them. This is where customer reviews come in. It is crucial that current and new clients have easy and quick access to your product reviews.
Make Informed Decisions
Use customer feedback data to help create future strategies in a fast-moving, competitive market. Make decisions based on what customers want and need or better yet, will need. Customer feedback is a quick and easy way to sort and prioritize product or service changes. Insights from your customers will help you decide where to allocate your money. Translate the data from your client’s feedback into making immediate tactical adjustments, revenue changes for the next quarter, and implementing long-term ideas.