You may be thinking you have a great relationship with your customers, however when was the last time you asked them how they are doing? Like all relationships, taking care of your customers requires checking in with them every now and then.

One of the best ways to make this a recurring part of your marketing strategy is to include it in your customer journey.

Before we go on, why do you need customer feedback? Here are five reasons:

You get to understand your customers better
There’s no better way to figure out what your customers like and dislike than by asking them at once. This feedback may be particularly precious when testing new products or services. Your customers will let you discover or prioritize issues or possibilities you had not considered or pursued. Use their feedback to improve your products, improve your brand experience, and also improve your customer service delivery.

You give your customers power
Relationships are a 2-way street. If customers don’t sense that their needs and satisfaction make up the foundation of your products or services, they’ll flip someplace else. Give them a voice, give them power and they’re more likely to feel valued, and in turn interact with your brand. This builds brand loyalty over time.

You get an outside perspective on your brand
When you are immersed in the day to day activities of your brand, it may be difficult to look at it from some other angle other than an inside man. Customer feedback and comments let you think like a customer and improve your decisions as a marketer.

You get valuable market insight
Discover what services clients are looking for and what needs they have that aren’t currently being provided. Yes, you could try to guess or assume these things, however, it’s definitely easier ask. You could also find out how your brand is perceived in comparison with your competition and see why a potential customer might pick every other brand’s service or product over yours (and vice versa).

You get to supplement big data statistics with qualitative information
Analytics are vital for understanding how people have interaction with your brand over time, but analytics don’t usually let you know the “why?”. Combining analytical data with customer feedback to open-ended questions allows you to get a clear understanding of what your customers are thinking; when they do the things they do.

Now that you know why it’s so critical to get customer feedback, the question is, what are the best ways to get that feedback?

Online/email surveys
This is the go-to method for gathering great customer feedback for most corporations. They’re particularly easy to create and send. However, be cautious of coming across as pushy or overwhelming. In case you send out a survey to all of your customers on a weekly basis, you’re not going to get a lot of useful information. Be intentional with your timing. If you need to understand what customers think about your services, products or experience, ask for feedback/reviews when you send them a purchase/payment confirmation email.

Make emails brief, straightforward, and consistent
Be respectful of your customer’s time, and keep email formatting easy. In case you’re using a scaling/rating system for a couple of questions, ensure you are using the same type of all the questions. For example, don’t change from a 1–10 to a 1–8 scale halfway through your survey. You may see low participation because instructions were inconsistent or you may end up gathering inaccurate information.

“Did you like this?” buttons and comment boxes
Each of these allows the customer to put out brief comments. Position them at the end of emails, in your website or blog, on new pages you’re testing, or anywhere your clients engage with your content. Whether or not your clients are experiencing a problem or not, they could quickly and without difficulty allow you to know there and then. Customers don’t need to look for your contact page, phone number, or look forward to the next e-mail survey to hit their inbox before they tell you what they think. When you have a protracted or unclear process of generating feedback, you’ll lose out on many opportunities to hear from your clients.

Always reply
Amassing customer feedback is to a large extent, about developing a dialogue between your brand and your clients. Responding to clients who willingly volunteer their time and energy is more than simply a good thing, it’s the right thing. Even replying with a simple “thanks” to customers who fill out an e-mail survey or comment box will show your customers you value them and encourage them to interact more with your brand.
You have gathered lots of feedback from your customers, however, it’s not enough to just have it. You need to do something with it.

Now that you have feedback, what do you do with it?

Spot the trends
Acting on each consumer feedback or insight might nearly truly be time and value prohibitive. But issues that come up recurring for a couple of clients are ones you want to inspect.

Compare findings and insights with a map of your customer journey
Do they match up? Are there disruptions or inconsistencies you hadn’t taken into consideration? Customer feedback is gold in relation to identifying factors along the customer journey and experience in which people get tripped up and drop off, or sail through like sunshine.

Share it
In case you find insights and make adjustments based totally on something you’ve learned from client feedback, inform your clients. When customers feel like your brand is invested in them, they’re more likely to return the favour and invest in your brand.

Including customer feedback as recurring part of your consumer journey will let you construct a higher, more seamless experience for your target market.

Thanks for reading! Got any questions or comments to add? Then do so in the comments below.

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Written by:
Tega Gabriel, Content Lead at Rene Digital Hub

Photo Credit: © Lightfieldstudiosprod | Dreamstime