For any business, customer feedback is invaluable to overall success and it’s critical collect – and act on – feedback on a regular basis. Below, we’ve outlined several benefits of having a process in place to proactively collect, analyze and address feedback.
Gauge Overall Customer Satisfaction
Whether your customer retention is high or you’re seeing an increase in customer turnover, the only way to truly understand customer satisfaction levels is by listening to their feedback. Some customers might reach out directly and share their thoughts on what they like or dislike about your product or service. But your business should also be proactive when it comes to soliciting customer feedback.
Make sure you include contact information on your website so customers can easily submit feedback. Also consider sending out customer surveys quarterly – or whenever works best for your business – and ask customers for their thoughts on your product or service overall, their experience with your customer service and other related topics. And if your business has the resources to do so, hire a customer service or customer success team, dedicated to staying in touch with customers, ensuring they have a great experience with your business and collecting valuable feedback. Analyzing feedback from surveys and your customer success team can help your business determine what’s working and what’s not – and identify ways to continuously improve the customer experience.
Improve Your Product or Service
Once you have an understanding of what’s working and what’s not, have a process in place to use feedback to inform future product or service updates and meet the needs of your customers. For example, if your customers request a specific product feature, you can consider adding it to your product roadmap. Or if they’re running into certain challenges with customer service, you can complete training with your team to address this feedback. Over time, embracing feedback can lead to improved customer satisfaction, a stronger product or service offering and increased sales.
Increase Customer Loyalty and Advocacy
Whether you receive positive or negative feedback, always acknowledge it so your customers know you value their feedback. Doing so will make customers feel more like partners in shaping the future of your business – and therefore, be more likely to remain loyal customers for the long haul. On the other hand, if they feel like feedback is being overlooked, your customers might not feel a true connection to your business and move on to another product or service with a team that will listen.
Your loyal customers are also more likely to turn into brand advocates. By acknowledging customer feedback, they’ll likely be more willing to recommend your product or service to friends, family and others in their network, leading to continued growth for your business. And once you’ve identified brand advocates within your customer base, think of other ways you can tap into their feedback – including more detailed testimonials, case studies and more.
Highlight Success Stories
Customer feedback not only gives you much-needed data to improve your business, but it also offers the opportunity to share success stories and positive feedback across a variety of channels. With your customers’ permission, you can share their feedback with the rest of your customer base – and prospects – via email marketing, social media and your website. Doing so will help your company attract more customers once they have an understanding of the great customer experience you offer.
At Hireology, our team is always hard at work on the latest product and customer service developments, and customer feedback plays a significant role in continuously improving our business offerings. Do you have feedback to share? If so, don’t hesitate to contact your dedicated Customer Success Manager.