Would love to get customers’ (honest) opinions but don’t know where to start and what to ask? Here’s the ultimate guide that will give you an idea of different ways to take customer feedback.
We will be discussing 4 commonly used customer feedback methods (that work!) with some best practices and tools to use.
An outline of topics this blog post covers:
- A perspective on why your business; no matter its size, can’t do without customer feedback.
- What are your reasons to collect customer feedback
- Surveys, Surveys, Surveys
- Use social media as a customer feedback tool
- Collect Feedback Via Emails
- Use contact forms, pop-ups, website widgets
- Rules to collect better customer feedback & what to do next
Before we dive into understanding customer feedback methods, here’s something that you need to know, something that hardly gets discussed.
A perspective on why your business; no matter its size, can’t do without customer feedback
Most often than not, businesses believe that it’s their product that holds a satisfied, happy, loyal customer base.
They keep gathering customer feedback on how to improve their product, what more to offer, how to market, what does a user want, etc. etc.
However…
It’s not a product. But customer support that decides whether or not a customer wants to partner with you
Take this Quora story for instance. The user purchased a refrigerator from Lowe’s. The delivery got delayed by 8 days. To make things worse,
(a) the customer was not informed (b) support reps hung up the phone twice (c) the customer was put on hold for a very long time – perfect disaster recipe of poor support and dissatisfied customers.
Now Lowe’s is a popular name. Their products are solid. But what’s the point! One bad experience and customers will go elsewhere. Happily.
These days, customers are putting more and more emphasis on good service. No one likes to buy from companies that provide inferior service.
Hence, it is very important for your businesses to excel at customer service. Consider prioritizing your support department when you collect customer feedback.
Take surveys and reviews that help understand what are some loopholes. How is your support team performing? What are some areas of improvement?
Once you are able to track, measure, and analyze these things, you can deliver greater customer experiences that lead to a loyal customer base.
DeskXpand is one such robust help desk software that lets you create and share customer satisfaction surveys in just a few clicks. You can provide a rating scale, customize questions, and ask for customer feedback that helps you at each stage.
Track how well your agents and customer support departments are performing with customer satisfaction surveys. Take a demo today to learn more!
What are your reasons to collect customer feedback
Before you jump into the logistical part of gathering customer feedback, have a clear intention as to why you are asking for an opinion.
- Do you want to improve an existing feature?
- Do you want to see how satisfied your customers are?
What is it that you want to know? When you collect feedback, always ask the right questions. It will save both your and your customers’ time.
If you don’t use the information you’re asking for, you’re wasting your customer’s time. You’re also wasting yours. You’ll have a whole batch of responses to look through and none of them will make a difference. Instead, save time and get better responses, by including only the essential questions.
Secondly, when approaching customers for feedback, be super specific. Highlight aspects that you want their opinion on.
AND chuck the ‘feel free to drop us your views’ attitude. (Nope. I ain’t free! *eye roll*)
Come on! Feel free is something I tell my peers when I need views. You got a growing brand on your shoulders. You can do better! Spike conversations that are enticing, and would encourage customers to consider to move forward.
Look at Slack. The example is perfect because,
2. It is considerate (‘would you mind?’ indicates we-know-you-are-busy-but-your-opinion-really-matters).
3. The “60 seconds” and “we read every response” part is a great way to build trust.
If I got this in my mailbox, I would surely rate them!
Let’s move to the methods to collect customer feedback!
Surveys, Surveys, Surveys
Customer experience surveys are challenging but if you know how to do it right, you can yield best results. Below are four types of surveys you can conduct to collect customer feedback.
A. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) Surveys
It is used to measure a customer’s contentment with a specific product, feature, transaction, etc. This type of survey has two parts: a question and an open-ended response.
CSAT matters since it gives you detailed insights into a specific interaction. Suppose, you have a SaaS product, throughout a product’s lifecycle – demo call, signup, onboarding, etc., you can leverage a CSAT survey.
B. Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys
This survey has a very specific use case – to know how likely a customer is to recommend your company to others.
You can use this type of survey to assess overall brand experience, product, service from qualitative and quantitative perspectives.
Ask your customers why they would recommend your organization. To make the experience even better, you can ask respondents to suggest what you can do to make things better in your company.
C. Visual rating survey
Instead of asking customers to give a written response, you can let them interact with a graphic. It could be stars, emojis, a slider scale, thumbs up/down, etc.
This type of survey is quick, intuitive, and visually appealing. You can share this type of survey immediately after a support conversation, at the bottom of a web page.
- Would you recommend this product?
- How do you rate our customer service?
- What options best describe your shopping experience on our website?
- How would you rate your stay at our hotel?
Best practices to take surveys
One of the biggest challenges with surveys is to get honest and accurate feedback. Online publications reveal that predicting future intentions via surveys, for example, whether or not customers will buy from you again, is difficult.
Here’s what you can do:
- Keep the length of the survey very short. Best if you can keep it under 5 mins. Remember, the longer the survey, the higher the dropout rate.
- Ask questions with a clear purpose. A respondent must have clarity if the survey is for service, feature, ease of use, or bug fixing.
- Close ended questions (yes/no types) should be a priority. However, using open-ended questions, you can also let customers share their thoughts.
Top tools to use
- Google Forms: the most basic one, and absolutely free
- DeskXpand: to create and send customer satisfaction surveys
- Survey Monkey: use expert templates for creating surveys
- Typeform: good for conversation type, engaging surveys
Pro tip: Use incentives to motivate respondents
Everyone likes good deals and free stuff. Increase the chances to get more responses by offering incentives. You can offer discounts, gift cards, coupons, free delivery, and such.
Create and share satisfaction surveys in just a few taps. Try DeskXpand today!
Use social media as a customer feedback tool
The way customers communicate is changing. They are more inclined towards using social media platforms to share their feedback.
So, put your existing social media accounts to good use by collecting feedback in various ways.
A. Listening is the first step
Do you know about Netflix’s DIY Socks?
That idea comes straight from listening to users on social media. The company came up with an idea of tech-enabled socks that can sense when you fall asleep and pause your show.
Thanks to social listening, Netflix became aware of the problem viewers face: falling asleep when binge-watching.
Social listening enables you to track hashtags, comments, mentions, posts, etc. that revolves around your business.
By monitoring mentions, you can know exactly what people are talking about your brand – both good and bad. It gives you real-time insights on issues people are having with your product or service.
B. Polls on Instagram and Twitter
Polls and questions on social media channels are not just about increasing engagement. They offer a brilliant opportunity to get the opinions of your customers. The best part? Conducting polls is free of cost!
(Use Instagram polls to know customers’ opinions)
If you are starting to develop a feature of a product, or considering launching somethings; polls can help in knowing customers’ opinions. Provided, you have an established fan following willing to respond.
Let’s be honest: the results you get from social media polls are not going to be totally reliable. But once a while asking lighter questions revolving your brand is not going to harm!
C. Live interactions and focus groups
Another way to collect customer feedback is by conducting Q/A sessions and live chat with your followers. It will not only boost engagement, but also help take real-time feedback.
Another effective way is to host focus groups. These are groups involving your target market where you share your ideas, ask questions, etc. Ask your existing and most loyal customers to be a part of such groups.
Best practices to use social media for feedback
Getting traction on social media platforms is not easy especially when you do not have an existing massive follower count. Here are a few things to consider.
- You will get the best results when you choose the right platform where your audience is already active.
- Try to include social media stories. The short-term urgent nature of stories is what makes them appealing and can help boost engagement.
- You can consider using Facebook messenger chatbot. Using the auto-responder feature, you can ask followers or users who like/comment on your post to fill up a survey.
Top tools to use
- Tools like Sprout Social, Buffer, Mention , Falcon.io, Hootsuite, etc. to monitor what’s going on your social media platforms.
- Canva, Pixlr, Pablo like tools to take care of the visual part.
Pro tip: Have direct conversations
The chances to get a response increases when you have a personalized direct conversation with users.
Related read: How to improve customer satisfaction with data analytics
Collect Feedback Via Emails
Embedding a survey in the email is something you know and you might already be using. So I am not going to waste your time telling you how important emails are.
However, one thing I’ll say is that it’s not easy to make people read your emails. 35% of emails are left unread and spam makes up 45% of all emails.
In most cases, experts on the internet will tell you to focus on your copy – one of a kind content, personalized text, attention-grabbing copy…
Yes, that’s important. But there are other technicalities, which, not taken into account, might kill your email strategy.
Best practices to ensure your emails do not end up in spam folder
- Check your sender reputation and spam score. Factors like quality of content, quality of your email contacts, engagement that your emails get, usually influence your score. Platforms like senderscore.org can help you here.
- Stick to a consistent email schedule. Sometimes, not maintaining a regular schedule can mess up email deliverability. Also do not over do. A good benchmark is one email per week.
- Focus on the visuals. When creating a feedback email, stick to simple and minimalistic design. An inverted pyramid is a great framework.
Use contact forms, pop-ups, website widgets
When trying and testing different methods to take feedback, do not forget your home – website! Here are a few ways that will help you.
Start sharing surveys with DeskXpand
Create and attach survey forms with your customer’s emails, messages, notifications, and other modes of communication just with a click. You have got 14 days to try it for free!
Best practices to take customer feedback on website
- One of the best ways to know audiences’ opinions is embedding surveys as a pop-up to get user attention. If you have a WordPress site, you can easily create a survey forms using WP forms. When designing the form, remember that the shorter the length the better.
- You can also use feedback buttons that appear on the side or bottom of a website. When a user clicks on the button, a feedback form appears. Consider using floating buttons to engage visitors and increase the chances to get a response.
- Directly and instantly receive feedback from customers using live chat. Embedding satisfaction surveys on live chat helps you measure how satisfied your customers are with their interactions with support representatives.
- Another classic way is to create a dedicated form to get feedback from customers. Uncluttered, visually appealing, and responsive forms always work.
Top tools to use
- DeskXpand: Create surveys and embed them on live chat and contact form
- Tools like HotJar, SurveySparrow, Popupsmart to create pop-ups
- Informizely, Survicate, for feedback buttons
Pro tip: Get noticed with the right design
If you are considering pop-ups or widgets on your website, prioritize the design part. You can either go with the overlay style where the message takes up the entire screen, or, you can have hook popups. These are side bars that do not interrupt the overall design.
Rules to collect better customer feedback & what to do next
| ✅ Pay equal attention to every type of customer – new ones, power users (the ones who spend the most time with your product), inactive customers (haven’t used your product for over a month, and trusted long-term customers. |
| 💁 Never have a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach for all your customer segments. Consider having different customer feedback parameters for each segment. |
| 🔁 Repetitive feedback is worth listening to. For example: if more customers are saying they find the UI of your website confusing, it’s an indicator that you might have messed up. |
| 👎 Be prepared for negative feedback. Customers who are fine with your product or service often stay silent. While customers who are unhappy/find an issue, are more motivated to express themselves. |
| ⏳ Timelines matter. Businesses reach out to customers when their opinions are fresh. This helps bring more accuracy in surveys or ratings. |
What next?!
Collect the feedback data in one place, and categorize it (feedback type, theme, etc.). Identify areas of improvement and include that in your product roadmap as well as marketing campaigns.
Customer feedback + DeskXpand (What’s in for you?!)
The support that any company delivers directly impacts customer satisfaction and customer experiences.
Hence, evaluating whether or not your support is up to the mark is crucial. With customer feedback, you get insights on how support reps are performing, how productive they are, and more.
Based on the data, you can take further actions to improve your customer support. DeskXpand’s in-built functionality of surveys can give you that power.
Packed with robust features and an equally intuitive interface, DeskXpand is the ultimate help desk software that support teams need in the competitive landscape.
Sign up for a 14 day free trial to reinvent the way you handle customer support.
