When you run a business, you want to ensure that your customers are satisfied with your products or services so that they keep coming back for more. It is important to know how your customers feel about your products though so that you can ensure that they are satisfied as you may hope. This is why customer feedback is so important to your business so that you can continue doing what works and change what does not for your customers. Sometimes it can be difficult to think of effective ways to get this feedback though, which is where the following tips come in handy.
1. Offer Live Chat Services
If you have a website, a live chat that utilizes artificial intelligence is a great way to get customer feedback quickly and effectively. It is very frequent that customers could be having trouble and don’t have the time to wait for an emailed response that could take hours. If your customers have just placed an order, for instance, you can have a chatbot pop up that asks them about how their recent transaction went. You can also use this live chat feature, however, to receive feedback from customers after they receive their products as it can automatically show up when customers arrive at your website. If there is a concern that the chatbot cannot help with, it can link them with a live chat agent to address the problem in more detail.
2. Social Media
With digital technology and social media on the rise, many customers choose to connect with businesses over social platforms. You can even receive feedback through these platforms by allowing or customers to leave reviews on your business page and encouraging them to do so. If you notice that customers tag your business in a post, you can also comment on their post appreciating the feedback that they are providing. This will showcase to them that you truly care about their opinion and how they are helping your business grow.
Social Media has a great influence on customers and your business’s social media presence will represent your brand to your audience and will be the deciding factor if customers want to come in and try your product or services. Being interactive with your followers shows that you appreciate their feedback and that you truly care about your customers, there are some ways you can do that. Social Media continues to incorporate new features, for example on Instagram you can post “polls” on letting your followers choose between ideas you are thinking of bringing to their business and they can vote on the best option. This is an idea to have your customers also being a deciding factor in new business ventures.
3. Email Newsletters
If you already have an email newsletter list, you can use this same list to receive customer feedback. Use email automation software to send out a survey or a questionnaire to your customers after they make a purchase or receive a product from you. Make sure that you provide an email reply for any positive feedback you receive thanking the customer for the response. Reply if you receive negative feedback as well to get more detail and to fix any problems that they may have encountered quickly and accurately so that the customer can still trust your business.
4. Open a Customer Forum
Customers do not want to feel as if they are alone in leaving feedback to your company. Open up a forum in which customers can discuss their opinions of your products with other customers and can share that experience. You may start to even notice a pattern among customers for something that may need a change in your company as multiple people are experiencing it. You can then address the entire group to explain how you are making the necessary change and to empathize with the problems they are experiencing.
5. Ask for Feedback
The final way to receive effective customer feedback is to, quite simply, ask your customers to provide it. If you have a retail location, casually talk with them about how the previous products they have purchased are suiting their needs. If you are already emailing a customer or chatting with them on the phone, ask them directly if they have any concerns about any of their previous purchases. Make sure that you are honest with them and that you can seem like somebody the customer can trust will make a change for them.
A very popular source for customers to give their feedback is on yelp, they’re app is used to allow customers to write reviews for the public to see. Instead of looking at the yelp reviews a good suggestion for your business is to design your own review page exclusively for your business only. You could do this by having an accessible site, you can display QR codes throughout your place of business where customers can complete the reviews on their phones or having a tab on the company website. This will give you easy access to any reviews and it will be more personal with your customers.
Final Thoughts
Customer feedback is one of the most effective ways that you can improve your business, so you should not be afraid of it. Making sure your customers are being satisfied with your products or services is extremely important for the growth of your business and continuing to keep the loyalty of your customers. Especially, good word-of-mouth of your business will attract more customers. Therefore, If you do notice that you are receiving negative feedback, start making the changes to find the improvement you need.
There are many ways to achieve the feedback you need whether you get it through a conversation with the customer or a survey response sent through an automated email where they can be thorough with the experience and they can include any suggestions they feel is necessary. Try new techniques to get the feedback you want as well such as searching tagged posts on social media and opening up a customer forum where people can vent.