We can’t emphasize enough how important a good customer experience is for any type of business. No matter how sophisticated your services or products are, a bad customer experience can send your operations downhill. But how can you perfect such if you have no idea what your market wants? This is where client feedback plays a huge role.
Let’s explain this further. Studies show that offering excellent customer service impacts the trust level of consumers. And when there is trust, you are likely to get the business. This should be enough reason for you to be proactive in getting client feedback. The data will be your basis in changing some of the ways when dealing with customers.
The real challenge now is how to solicit genuine client feedback. We have here several ways that can help you.
Company Website
Let’s begin with your company website. Your website should have a dedicated page for your client feedback.
If you are to take this approach, have an expert look at your survey form. Sometimes, business owners would like to know as much information from their customers. And because of that, they tend to create extremely long forms, which can be a huge turnoff for online visitors.
Also, you may add a few open-ended questions so that you can get more information from your customers. They might have insights that your questions are not able to cover.
Follow Up Email
This works best for eCommerce since, most of the time, they require email addresses. These can be stored in the database, and you can send an email once they are finished with the transaction.
However, we noticed that most company emails are ignored. For some, it goes straight to the trash. An ingenious gimmick is to give them a discount after sending their feedback to you. It could be a digital coupon or QR code – whatever works best for your business.
Send SMS
Before you tell us that SMS is a thing of the past, note that this has higher open rates than email. That’s one good reason to use this platform. Also, not everyone is connected to the internet 24/7. By maximizing SMS, you can encourage them to send customer feedback. They can do so by replying to your messages, or you can add a link just in case they would go online.
Client Meetings
When you provide services to your client and have a contract in place, it isn’t enough that you deliver. You must also set a regular schedule with your clients so they can walk you through their experience. It’s a value-added service that they will appreciate.
Phone Calls
This is another traditional approach to obtain client feedback. But this strategy is best if you have already established a good relationship with your customer.
Let’s be honest. Most seem to be allergic to answering phone calls. However, if you have been working or servicing a particular client, you can schedule a quick call to get their feedback.
Provide Free WiFi
With more people glued to their smartphones, providing free WiFi works like magic.
If you own an establishment like a restaurant or coffee shop, you can offer free WiFi in exchange for your customer’s email addresses. You can store it in your database and include them when you send your email survey or feedback form.
Social Media
Many people spend their time browsing through social media. Use this as leverage when asking for client feedback. You can simply direct them to your company page and request for reviews.
What’s good about feedback in social media is that it is public, and others could see it. If you have provided excellent customer service, then you are likely to get a high star rating. This can encourage more people to patronize your products or services.
Leave Feedback Cards
Feedback cards might sound primitive for most people, but it works. You can always prepare printed cards where your customers could easily see it. Just make sure that you will collect and tabulate it so you can compare data. If you do the encoding every day, the task will only take you 5 minutes.
Company and Industry Events
What’s good about getting client feedback during events is that you can do it in-person. That means the approach is more personal and conversational. Take note that you are mostly to get qualitative data from these events where you capture emotions and opinions. If you do it right, you can get valuable information for your business.
Analyze Chat Support and Live Calls
One way to get client feedback is by reviewing your past chat support and live call records. From here, you can lift the actual issues your customer experienced and how it was resolved. If the issues are recurring, then you should enforce a more streamlined solution to avoid it in the future.
Web Analytics
While this is not exactly getting feedback from your customers, you can learn a lot from understanding your web analytics. You see, their online behavior could be translated to their experience.
Let’s have an eCommerce website as an example. If you see that most of your online visitors add items to their kart yet do not purchase, there are many possible reasons. Maybe your payment platform looks unsafe. Or perhaps, you have a complicated process. These subtle behaviors speak a lot about customer experience. And you need to have a watchful eye to see it.
Conclusion
There are different platforms where you can get client feedback. And the information from there is considered a gold mine.
The good thing about technology is that you don’t have to do everything offline. Use social media, email, or your website to get their insights.
Just remember, what is important is that you carefully collect all the reviews so your team can analyze and form a better strategy for the business. It’s more than just showing good reviews about your company. It’s about having a foundation so you can improve your overall operations.
