The 6 Best Ways to Get Feedback from Your Customers

In the majority of industries and especially in the retail business (both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce), there’s nothing more important than getting regular feedback from your customers. As a business, you’re depending on the satisfaction of your customers, both when it comes to attracting new buyers and when it comes to making previous customers return. Feedback is also the most reliable way for you to improve your operations, due to the fact that you can’t fix a problem if you’re unaware of its existence. With all this in mind and without further ado, here are six best ways you can get feedback from your customers.

Use email surveys

Email marketing is still one of the most efficient methods out there with the staggering ROI of 4400 percent. This alone is the reason why so many companies see email surveys as their go-to method when it comes to gathering feedback. For an email survey to work, you need to compose it properly, which means making a proper subject line, stating who and why is asked to participate and explain the survey’s purpose. If there’s a deadline or an incentive, now’s the time to mention them. All of this will offer enough explanation for all those who need it.

Monitor your online community

Sometimes, your audience will be the most honest when they are not aware that you’re listening. This is why you need to monitor the conversations that are taking place in your online community. This comes in several different forms and formats. First of all, you can use a specialized platform to monitor brand mentions on social media. Second, you can act as a member of your own community and visit forums and subreddits that your audience is frequenting. This infiltration method can be particularly insightful.

Find an adequate app

Finding a specialized tool that is designed as a reliable customer feedback app might be your best chance of getting the answers you need. Advantages of these methods lie in the fact that they help you win customers in real time, as well as give you a chance to offer customized incentives to individuals who are still on the fence. As a result, an e-commerce business can use these methods to give a boost to its conversion rates and enable the increase in the rate of return customer retention.

Use a poll

Opinion polling is a method that stirs a lot of controversies when the issue of feedback acquisition is discussed. The benefit of this method lies in the fact that you get a chance to get a majority opinion, which is often less biased than a one-on-one interview could ever be. The golden rule of statistics is that, in large numbers, randomness increases the potential accuracy. The problem, however, is that some people deliberately provide false answers, thus tampering with the end result of the poll. The latter is the risk of every other method on the list, as well, yet, it’s far more likely on the poll, due to the fact that it’s a lot easier to click randomly than to give meaningful answers.

Rely on your customer service

Your customer service is a part of your enterprise that has direct interactions with your customers. By listening to their complaints (over the phone or via a live chat), they’ll get a lot more accurate insight into the overall customer satisfaction. Remember, this is not you asking but your customers directly coming out to talk about issues that bother them, which is why this feedback gathering method always takes precedence.

Feedback on order confirmation page

One of the biggest problems with some of the above-listed methods lies in the fact that they’re quite easy to ignore. After all, there’s nothing easier than not opening an email or not taking a poll when you don’t have to. On the other hand, what if you were to introduce a simple survey (just asking your customers to give your business a star rating) when they’re on the order confirmation page. This only takes one second and, due to the fact that your customer has already interacted with you, the probability of them following through with this is a lot higher.

As you can see, your options are numerous, yet, you don’t really have to choose which one to apply. It’s by far the most efficient to go with all of these methods simultaneously in order to harvest as much raw data as possible. By having all this information, you’ll have a much easier job of making all the right calls to improve your business model.