Find out how to gather and use feedback from your customers to improve performance
According to a study by Deloitte&Touche, customer-centric businesses are 60% more profitable than non-customer-centric businesses. So there's no denying it: it's now essential to put the customer experience and listening to customers at the heart of your marketing strategy.
Customer satisfaction is now, more than ever, a priority for businesses, especially in a post-pandemic world that is so unpredictable and uncertain. Keeping and retaining customers is just as important as customer acquisition and conversion.
And what could be better than analysing feedback from your customers to constantly improve your offerings and better meet their expectations? Whether positive or negative, customer feedback is a very powerful growth and management tool for your company.
What are the different types of customer feedback? How do you collect and analyse it effectively? What are the different strategies for collecting feedback, and what tools are appropriate? Find the answers in this article.
Customer feedback: what is it?
Customer feedback: definition
Customer feedback refers to all the assessments, criticisms, opinions or observations made by a customer about a product, service or customer experience. It therefore refers to customer feedback that can be collected via several digital channels or even physically, at a point of sale for example.
There are, of course, positive and negative customer feedbacks.
It's undeniable that positive feedback is more pleasant and encouraging for your business, but you shouldn't neglect negative feedback either, which, when constructive, is an excellent way of proving your responsiveness and ability to listen!
💡 Remember to make small commercial gestures; often simple and much appreciated by customers, they considerably improve your brand image!
Why is customer feedback important for companies?
Identifying areas for improvement in the customer journey
Who better than your customers to offer suggestions for improvement? Every detail can be important: from the colour of a product to its quality, not forgetting the ancillary services on offer, you need to gather consumer opinions. This will enable you to adapt your offer accordingly.
👉 Of course, a customer can be wrong, but the fact remains: never miss an opportunity to review your customer journey and improve!
Make sure you're responding correctly to customer expectations
Analysing customer feedback also means taking pleasure in your customers' satisfaction (and happily so!). You're working hard to provide a tailored offering and it's only natural to want to make sure that these efforts are paying off and that your customers are satisfied.
💡 It also helps to motivate your teams and enhance your employer brand. Working for a company that satisfies its customers and is useful in their day-to-day lives is an excellent motivator.
Valuing your customers and showing them that you care
Customers are the backbone of your business. They need to feel listened to and valued. They may be paying for a product or service, but they also expect a minimum of consideration.
This will give them emotional reasons to be loyal to your brand and to continue buying your products.
Anticipating market trends
Customer feedback is also an excellent way of discovering market trends.
By studying your customers' feedback, you can identify their expectations, which are often representative of current consumer behaviour in the market in question. This will enable you to create and develop an innovative offering and stand out from the competition!
👉 F or example: you run an online medical appointment booking site. You notice that several of your customers are complaining about not having access to teleconsultation, a method of medical consultation that has become popular with the pandemic and the lockdown. Analysing their feedback has enabled you to get up to speed and prevent your customers from going to the competition.
What customer feedback strategy should you use?
The "Pull" strategy with spontaneous feedback
This strategy involves letting customers give their opinion spontaneously. This can involve :
- a customer review left on your website
- a comment on your social networks
- a complaint or claim via your customer service department, etc.
👉 Despite the fact that this type of strategy concerns spontaneous customer feedback, you can push (subtly and without forcing) your customer to give their opinion. For example, you could :
- set up a tablet or touch-screen terminal at the point of sale where customers can rate their satisfaction,
- highlight a toll-free telephone number on your website where they can contact you if they have a complaint or query,
- inform them via your social networks or newsletter that a "Customer Satisfaction" page has been opened on your site, without asking them directly to add their opinion.
The "Push" strategy with solicited feedback
This strategy involves clearly and directly inviting customers to give their opinion. This can be done :
- by sending satisfaction questionnaires (annual or monthly) by email, SMS or via your social networks,
- a post-purchase rating system,
- customer satisfaction indicators (NPS, CSTA, CES).
How often should you gather feedback from your customers?
When it comes to solicited feedback, i.e. when you choose to collect your customers' feedback yourself, there are several options open to you:
Ad hoc customer feedback gathering
This type of customer feedback gathering is carried out for a very specific purpose:
- to study customer satisfaction following a particular event,
- obtaining feedback following a change in service,
- or to gain a better understanding of a very specific phenomenon (a drop in the average shopping basket).
One-off customer feedback surveys
Monthly, quarterly or annual satisfaction surveys are very popular with managers as a way of periodically monitoring changes in customer satisfaction.
Gathering customer feedback in real time and on an ongoing basis
This involves collecting feedback from all your customers, on the fly, after each interaction evaluated:
- an order
- a telephone call with an advisor
- an in-store experience, etc.
How can you gather feedback from your customers?
Social networks
Social networks (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) are an excellent way of gathering customer feedback for 2 main reasons:
- Consumers are more active on social networks than on any other platform;
- The opinions collected are generally more authentic and more meaningful, since they are spontaneous and, in the vast majority of cases, written immediately after the customer experience.
Quote: In 2020, 87% of French people said they looked at customer reviews before making a purchasing decision. (IFOP)
👉 Tip: on Facebook, for example, you can integrate a "Customer Reviews" tab on your page. This way, all reviews, whether positive or negative, from consumers who have bought your product or service, will appear on your Facebook page.
Emailing and satisfaction surveys
As we saw earlier, emailing is also a very good way of gathering feedback from your customers, but this time it' s solicited. As we've seen, whether it's for feedback on a particular event, an annual survey or an ongoing survey, email is a highly effective channel for communicating with your customers.
Here are 4 tips for creating an effective customer feedback request email:
- Personalise the subject line so that it makes the customer want to click;
- Write a personalised introduction with the customer's name so that they feel that this is not just a simple automated message, but a targeted request;
- Contextualise your request to remind the customer of the context in which they should record their experience (following a purchase, a reservation, a call, etc.);
- Insert an action button (CTA) in your email to encourage the customer to click on it.
Shop or point of sale
You can also collect customer feedback in-store or directly from your points of sale. This type of collection is probably the most relevant of all, since :
- you get live, face-to-face feedback from your customers:
- you can ask them any questions you like;
- for the more patient among you, you can open up a real dialogue and discuss your product/service in more detail and even ask for potential points for improvement.
👉 However, this type of survey also has a few drawbacks:
- it's difficult to put all the feedback in writing, so there's no paper trail to keep over the long term,
- opinions are not quantifiable, so it is difficult to incorporate them into your KPI analyses,
- not all customers are receptive to this type of solicitation and it's harder to be honest face to face!
Comments on your website
Last but not least, comments on your website! There's nothing more effective and practical for customers than to scroll down a product page or catalogue and get consumers' opinions.
🚨 Unfortunately, a study carried out by the DGCCRF has shown that the rate of false online reviews is estimated at 35% across all sectors.
👉 Customers have become more wary of reviews left on an e commerce site, but this doesn't mean we should abandon this channel, which is still demonstrating its power and influence on the final act of purchase.
💡 Tip: you may receive negative reviews on your website or GMB (Google my business). Don't delete them! Show your responsiveness and professionalism by responding to them in a kind and skilful manner.
3 effective customer feedback tools for your business
Avisplus
Avisplus is intelligent feedback management software that allows you to solicit and analyse your customers' opinions simply and centrally by providing you with intelligent redirections.
The key features of Avisplus :
- an emailing system coupled with analysis technology that lets you edit and send emails directly from the platform while analysing open rates, conversion rates, etc,
- full monitoring and statistics for your notices , automatically recording all user actions and key indicators for sending,
- a workflow system that defines rating links (Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) with intelligent redirection.
Harvestr
Harvestr is a comprehensive, ultra-intuitive and easy-to-use product management software package that helps you store, centralise, enrich and exploit your customer feedback to create high-quality digital products.
Harvestr's key features :
- centralisation and categorisation of your feedback via integration with a number of recognised customer service tools (Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, etc.) and CRM tools (Hubspot, Salesforce);
- automatic calculation and prioritisation of feedback based on fully configurable criteria,
- centralising and categorising your feedback to make it easier to use,
- creation of engaging and intuitive product roadmaps, connected to your feedback to facilitate prioritisation;
- notifications sent to your teams and customers on the status of their feedback for better product communication.
Harvestr
Wizville
Wizville is a comprehensive and effective customer feedback management software package designed to help companies collect, enrich and exploit their customer opinions, data and information to improve their e-reputation.
The key features of Wizeville :
- continuous collection of published reviews, measurement and analysis of satisfaction using key indicators and automatic suggestions for actions to be taken to improve them,
- verification of each customer review thanks to Trustville, an AFNOR NF Z74-501-compliant trusted third party , and distribution across all your channels directly via the review platform,
- creation, distribution and analysis of your questionnaires or satisfaction surveys,
- aggregation of verified reviews published on Facebook and GMB (Google my Business).
In a nutshell
As you will have realised, feedback is an essential lever for companies that place the customer at the heart of their marketing strategy. Having feedback, whether positive or negative, considerably improves your offering and your customer service by providing your consumers with products/services that are increasingly tailored to their needs.
Article translated from French