How to Encourage Feedback from Customers

Your products were designed for your customers and they should meet their needs and expectations. And the only way to know if your customers see those products as valuable is to gather their feedback.

Feedback is an invaluable resource for businesses as it helps them understand how customers perceive their products. However, some companies struggle to find effective ways to encourage customer feedback.

If you want to learn how to encourage feedback from customers and learn the best customer feedback methods, you’ve come to the right place.

Why Do Customers Avoid Giving Feedback?

Before we get into how to encourage customers to provide feedback, you need to understand all the reasons why they may not want to do that in the first place:

• Poor survey design. If your feedback surveys are too long, if the questions aren’t worded well, or if you ask questions your customers aren’t comfortable answering, they’ll avoid the survey altogether. The same if the survey performs clunky or looks bad. Choose the proper survey software that matches your needs in terms of look and feel (but don’t forget security and ease-of-use).
• They don’t feel appreciated. A lot of customers don’t feel like companies appreciate them or their feedback. If you don’t have good customer care, they’ll think you simply don’t care and won’t be inclined to give their opinion when asked for it.

• They don’t understand why you need it. When you send out feedback surveys, do you tell your customers what you’ll use the information for? If they don’t know why you need the feedback, they won’t understand why it’s important to provide it.
• Bad timing. You need to focus on real-time feedback because it’s more likely for a customer to answer your questions as soon as their interaction with your business ends. And as a bonus, real-time feedback always provides more accurate information.

How to Encourage Customers to Give Feedback (6 Proven Ways)

When looking for how to encourage feedback from customers, you’ll probably run into many methods, not all of which will be successful. However, these six strategies are proven and they’ll get you the feedback you want and need.

1. Give incentives

Sending your customers small gifts such as coupon codes or gift cards is a great way to show your appreciation and incentivize them to give you a review.

But of course, you shouldn’t bribe them for positive reviews. Make sure to ask for their honest feedback because that’s the only way you can use the information to change and improve your business.

2. Make it easy

Customers don’t want to jump through hoops just to provide you with feedback, and they shouldn’t. If you’re asking them to take some time out of their busy lives and provide you with their opinion, it’s your job to make the process easy for them.

Ask them what channels they would prefer to use to leave their reviews, include easy-to-use customer feedback tools wherever you can, and provide them with links to the surveys you want them to take.

3. Keep it short

All the advice on how to encourage customer feedback doesn’t mean anything if you don’t keep your surveys short and concise. Long surveys and questionnaires often have high abandonment rates and even if customers take the time to fill them out, they’ll become frustrated by the end of the process.

Since you’re asking people to take the time out of their day for you, it’s important not to take up too much of their time. Also, you need to find the perfect time to do so. For example, a good time to ask for a review is when you notice a customer is talking about your business on social media or referring it to their friends.

4. Nurture the conversation

Learning how to encourage customers to give feedback also includes learning how to nurture the conversation and treating customers as more than just a source of feedback. To do this, you need to have real conversations about their experiences, not just send surveys out of the blue.

You can use any method of communication to have these conversations (e.g. email and social media). And when you’re finished, you can politely ask the customers if they would be willing to leave an online review or fill out a survey.

5. Make it personal

Feedback gives you a great opportunity to connect with customers and relate to them on a personal level. You can learn what they think about your products, how they’re using them, and get insights into what you can do to make their experience better.

A good way to make a more personal connection is to ask for it over the phone. This way, you can easily establish a more personal connection and get more in-depth information. Even though in today’s digital age phone calls are often overlooked, a lot of people are more willing to talk than type.

6. Respond to customer feedback

Finally, and probably most importantly, you need to respond to the feedback you received and follow up. When you do that, you show that you appreciate the information you get and are using it to make positive changes to your business and products.

It’s important to respond to both positive and negative feedback as it shows customers you’re taking them seriously and want to build trust with them.

Start Encouraging Customer Feedback Today

Learning how to encourage feedback from customers means understanding the importance of responding to all types of feedback. And it doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, or even nonsensical. Show that you listen and care. And if you know how to ask for feedback, you’re going to get it.

If you’re consistent about asking for feedback, build multiple channels to receive it, act on the feedback, and try to make personal connections with customers, you’ll see positive results. Try out everything you’ve just read about and you’ll see that encouraging feedback is easier than it seems.

Load more...