Customers and clients can offer priceless insight and a fresh perspective regarding the products your business offers. They can be a critical source of valuable information that including their experience and satisfaction levels which is crucial for continued improvement and even the survival of the business. Here are some ways to get high-quality feedback from your clients that you can then act on to improve your products and services.
1. Follow-up and ask for it
More people are willing to give feedback than will actually bother leaving any. Ask for it through a follow-up email or other follow-up contact after a service has been completed. Targeting such a wide group of customers can lead to a ton of responses which provides a better understanding of user experience than a few scattered responses.
You can just make a blanket request for feedback or include targeted questions if there is any specific information you are hoping to learn. Keep the message short and sweet with a link to the included survey if any. Consider using an anonymous survey to encourage honest responses. Email works especially well with millennials and younger generations who prefer business communication via email.
2. Use a net promoter score
One of the best ways to know how your customers feel about your product or service is to ask them if they would recommend it to a colleague or friend. Ask them to rate on a scale of 0 to 10 how willing they would be to recommend it. Then follow-up by asking, “why did you rate us that way?” This is simple, not time-consuming, and the generated feedback is clear, measurable, and actionable.
3. Ask for the good, the bad, and the ugly
The purpose of following up is to understand the customer’s experience with your company and product. It is helpful to know what was good for them as well as what was not good for them at all. You can build upon what customers appear to appreciate and work on fixing their pain points.
4. Ask why
Ask why to understand the underlying their underlying motivations and reasoning. For example, for a software company, a client could be asking for a certain feature to be introduced, and when you ask why it reveals the problem they are actually trying to have addressed which does not necessarily have to be solved in that way. Asking why means you are not left trying to guess at and figure out what the customer may be trying to communicate.
5. Show an example of what good feedback looks like
An example of what good feedback looks like can help steer them on the right path. It also helps them know what kind of detail you may be looking for. For example, a company that designs software can add in a review that requested a certain feature and the reasons given for requesting that feature. Then the company can say they acted on that have since made changes x and y as a result.
Letting them know that you will act on their feedback and have done so in the past heightens their sense of excitement and willingness to participate. It makes the customers feel like their views and responses matter and makes it clear that you are eager to hear from them and act on their opinions.
6. Be analytical and identify trends
The purpose of soliciting feedback is to act on it and improve the product, service, and overall user experience. This requires analysis of the data received in order to identify trends. Depending on the volume of feedback you may need to automate this and even seek the services of a professional.
If it’s not too overwhelming, you can classify and analyze the data yourself. Tag the feedback into different categories for example into groups such as those on the product and those on the customer service or customer experience. Identify the issues that are brought up most frequently. Make plans to address the issues that arise the most. Fixing them will make a positive impact on a wide range of clients and this will serve to reinforce to the majority that giving their feedback actually has an immediate impact on their user experience. This makes them more willing to give feedback in the future and may even improve the quality of their feedback.
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