Today’s customers have opinions about your business, and lots of them! It’s never been easier to learn what your customers think. If you’re not getting the message, you’re not listening.
Customer feedback is essential to improving your product and keeping your customers happy. And though most companies know that customer feedback is essential to business success, many don’t know where to start. Fortunately, there are many customer feedback tools that you can use to start receiving customer feedback today.
Create a survey
Asking your customers to complete a survey can be one of the most effective ways to find out exactly what they’re thinking, but where do you begin? To make sure your survey is successful, start by clearly defining your goal. What is it you want to know? When developing the customer feedback questions, keep them short and easy. If there are too many questions, or if the questions are complicated, customers will quit.
If you’re wondering what to ask, there are several free customer feedback templates and online tools (like SurveyMonkey) to help build your survey. If you use a template, make sure to add your company’s personality and let your brand shine through.
Finally, make sure the survey ends up in your customer’s hands. Either email it to them, display a clear link on your website or on a receipt, or create an in-app prompt. Always close the feedback loop by thanking them for their time and input, analyzing their thoughts, and taking action on their suggestions.
Put a feedback box on your website
Adding a feedback box directly to your website or app is a great way to quickly survey your customers. A feedback box is similar to a customer feedback survey, but is much smaller and should be even easier for your customers to complete. You can create a page on your website with a form, or use a pop-up/
Your feedback form should ask very direct questions — no more than five closed-ended questions and three open-ended questions. Keep it simple! Always thank the customer for their opinion with an automated email response or webpage redirect. Just like in a traditional survey, the most important step is to analyze the results and use the customer’s input to improve your company.
Ask customers to text you
If you really want to make the customer feedback process easy for your customers, consider accepting feedback by text message. That’s right — there are customer feedback tools that allow your customers to send you their thoughts directly via text.
It’s an easy, convenient, and effective way to receive their feedback and open a one-on-one dialogue with customers. Another benefit to text message feedback is it allows your customers to send you a complaint directly instead of airing their grievances online. If you respond quickly and correctly, they’re less likely to post a negative online review.
Womply Customer Feedback makes it easy to create a direct texting channel with customers. There are no apps or software to install, and customers can anonymously send you info, which means you’re more likely to receive honest input.
Here’s how it works. Your company gets a special, anonymous feedback number that you can post wherever your customers are most likely to see it — on receipts, menus, your website or front door. Your customers can text you anonymously, allowing them to provide direct feedback instead of posting their thoughts online.
Read online reviews
Online reviews have become the dominant venue for customer feedback. Customers love shouting the good, bad and ugly from the hilltops of the online world. And, would-be customers go straight to online reviews to research brands and products before ever making a purchase.
Online reviews are truly a blessing and a curse for today’s merchant. The good news is there are solutions to help your small business take control over online reviews. Read about how online reviews impact small business revenue, and see how Womply customers like Seafood Kitchen, LC’s Bar-B-Q, and LM Restaurants are taking control of the conversation.
Take action
Your customers have opinions about your company — find out what they are!
Whether you receive customer feedback through surveys, text messages or online reviews, the key to customer retention is truly listening to your customers’ positive and negative opinions about your business, and then using their feedback to make it even better. Womply can help you manage customer feedback while saving tons of time every week. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!