What are the Best Ways to Get Customer Feedback? – Methods and Ideas

Customer Feedback is importantFeedback is important because it gives you an idea what your customers think of you.  Depending on the type of feedback you get will depend on how accurate this is but in most cases you are likely to get a clearer view of how you are doing.

Without is you are just driving blond – you are just selling and not finding out what peoples thought are.  You will soon find yourself with not only a bad reputation, but only with a limited number of new sales and no repeat business which is what you are aiming to build.

But it isn’t just about gaining the feedback its about using it to become more efficient, using it to change and develop as a business and being able to take negative criticism and turn it into a positive.

Few businesses will have a feedback strategy and with smaller businesses this isn’t always necessary but you need to be seeking feedback in some form.


Barriers to Getting Feedback

Fear:

For many businesses the idea of getting feedback is a pretty daunting thing.  You will be getting he brutal truth about what your customers really think about you.

Nobody likes to hear bad news but knowing helps you know what you need to fix. Feedback is often positive: it helps you understand and reinforce what you are doing right. And the negative comments should just be looked and and minimised.

Although a lot of this can be seen in your profits some of the effects of peoples opinions can take years to take effect (such as branding and reputation) so you could find that you have many unhappy customers who are currently looking elsewhere.  But the fact they are still your customers gives you a chance.

Get their feedback before they have the chance to switch supplier and try rectify the issues they have.

Responding to Feedback:

Acting on peoples comments is part of the feedback process and its just as important to makes changes based on feedback as it is to get the feedback in the first place.

Sometimes its easy issues people have a problem and they can be easily solved and some will take some time.  But whatever it is you should try find a solution.

Time:

There is also the issue of time.

Many staff think they are too busy to get feedback from the customer or incorporate feedback into their job role.  But as a customer service or sales team member feedback should be in their job description in some form or other.

Engaging staff isn’t too hard as long as they understand why they are doing it and see changes being made as a result.  Often staff will hear comments about service and products all the time but not log it as feedback and instead take it as criticism.  With a bit of positive training about feedback and encouragement of its benefits staff will be onboard and will positively seek feedback from customers.  Never have a ‘blame and shame’ culture where staff are scared to give any feedback gained back to management and constantly fear what could be said about them.  Its a culture of fear and will never create a positive environment.  Instead, pass on praise, fix problems and get ideas from staff about what changes could be made.


Different Types of Feedback

There are different ways you can get feedback from customers,  Here is just a few.

1. Ask Them

Sales staff will be having contact with customers on a regular basis so they are best positioned to get this type of feedback.  Its on the spot so everything is fresh in peoples minds.  The problem is, people will often not want to give negative comments on the spot.  How many times have you had a bad haircut but when the hairdresser asks if you like it you nod and smile?

2. Mystery Shopper

Be the customer, either by being a mystery shopper yourself or by hiring a mystery shopper to get you some really good feedback.  I’ve been a mystery shopper myself and its a great way of getting some really good feedback.  As a mystery shopper I had a set task – a set item to buy or enquire about and a set customer journey to follow.  I was then able to give some really good feedback on that journey which hopefully gave some good insight into the way the business is currently seen from outside.

3. Focus Groups.

Focus groups are representatives of customers whose job is to provide you with information on their needs and preferences. Offer customers an incentive to come in and give you feedback in a group.  Being part of a focus group will open people up.  The group will tend to start with an issue which will snowball into another issue and so on and so on.  This will give you lots of positive and negative feedback but needs a good facilitator to keep them on track and focused on what you want them to give feedback on.

4. Questionnaires and Surveys
 
This is one of the most common ways of getting feedback from customers and the most used.  And hence why there are many online places you can set up surveys such as SurveyMonkey. They are not always free to set up but costs are low and its easy to send people a link to your survey and ask for them to complete it.  Again though, the best way of getting a high response is to offer an incentive for completing the survey.  And never make it too long to complete – give an estimated time on the email asking them to complete so they can judge if they have time there and then.  Most people will not want to complete anything that will take more than 10-15minutes.
 
5. Your Staff

Your staff hear feedback every day in their jobs and are often the best judge on how the business is doing.  But sometimes there’s a fear of being able to give back this negative feedback.  Encourage staff to be able to open up about what they have heard about the business and give feedback about how they think things should change.  They live the customer journey everyday and will often have great ideas about how things can change to not only make their job easier but to make the customer happy.

So, even the best known businesses in the world need feedback in order to survive.  A business needs to adapt to the changing needs of the customer which will mean keeping on top of what customers need.  Being able to gain this feedback and use it to your best advantage will help you to provide what the customer wants when they want it which will go a long way in helping you to succeed.

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Comment

  • We have used trustpilot on our site to good effect… the reviews feed through to google shopping which is good for trust score etc… but they charge £75 a month for their business service which in my opinion is waaaaay too much.

    It automatically sends all clients a review request 30 days after receiving their goods. but for £75 a month we could automate that ourselves.

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