Successful customer feedback process

Everybody is talking about the importance of customer feedback, and rightfully so. We know by now, that there is value in feedback as it helps improve products and services, measure customer satisfaction, create a better customer experience, and inspire loyalty. But, do you see the desired results from your efforts at collecting feedback? If not, you might want to reconsider your customer feedback process.

Many companies collect feedback because that is what experts say they should do. The experts are right, by the way. You should gather customer feedback. But before that, you need to create a customer feedback process to manage the data you collect effectively.

What is a customer feedback process?

Having in place a customer feedback process allows you to continually and consistently leverage customer feedback and profit from it. A systematic feedback process is all about enabling the customer to provide feedback and ensuring the collected data is actionable towards improving your business and meeting customer expectations. The most beneficial aspect, however, of a customer feedback process is that it engages the customer in a way that delivers relevant information and, upon further analysis, insights.

How to create a successful customer feedback process

Customer feedback presents you with the opportunity to listen to your customers and assimilate their feedback to grow your business. Sit back and continue reading to find out how to create a customer feedback process that yields the desired outcomes.

1. Keep your questions short and simple

Your first concern is to make it easy for your customers to answer questions. Long questions and complicated language will not do you any favors. Focus your questionnaires on the aspect of your business you want to receive feedback for. Keep your questions simple and to the point. Your customers will not answer any questions if they have to spend too much energy on the feedback.

2. Think of the survey experience

An excellent survey experience depends on many factors. Take into consideration the frequency at which you request feedback, the length of your questionnaires, and the timing of your surveys. Sending out long surveys after every single interaction between the customer and your company is not the best idea. You will only cause respondent fatigue, and the data quality will significantly deteriorate.

What’s more, the look and feel of your surveys should engage the customer and grab their attention. With Surveypal, for example, you can customize your surveys and style them according to your brand’s guidelines and general aesthetic. Or, you can personalize the survey experience based on customer data you already have on your CRM system. This way, you can boost response rates and deliver a consistent brand experience every time you communicate with your customers.

3. Pay attention to individual feedback

Depending on your business goals, you can look at feedback collectively or at an individual level. Usually, when you look at feedback on a general level, you focus on metrics such as customer satisfaction or the NPS®, which measure how your entire customer base feels on average about your company. These metrics are very useful and well established. Nonetheless, it is equally important to pay attention to individual customer feedback. This is particularly beneficial in customer support environments where research shows that 82% of customers leave the company because of a bad customer service experience.

Many of our users integrate Surveypal into their customer support software to collect feedback after a customer interacts with a company representative. These users create workflows that automatically send out notifications when receiving negative feedback to respond immediately and keep their customers happy.

When focusing on the feedback of individual customers, make sure you include in your surveys open-ended questions. This approach will let you drill down on the feedback and uncover the root causes of the issues.

4. Turn feedback into action

Collecting customer feedback is the first step. The second step is to crunch the data to gain actionable insights and improve your business. Feedback has the most value when it affects change in different areas of your business. It is essential to react to negative feedback, but it is equally as essential to be proactive and let data-driven decision-making impact your daily operations and future plans.

Take advantage of the customer feedback process and evaluate the feedback you are receiving. Based on it, try to figure out where you have excelled and which areas you need to do better in the future. If your customers have issues with your product or service, develop new features. If they complain about long wait times in customer service, train your agents to solve issues faster. The bottom line: Do something.

5. Track down your actions and reassess the game plan (if necessary)

Great! You paid attention to the feedback and made changes. Now, you need to turn again to your customers to figure out if the changes were in the right direction. Are you seeing the results you were expecting? Good job. Are you still not quite where you hoped you would be? Keep on listening to your customers and make tweaks here and there. Collecting and managing customer feedback is a continuous process. There are always answers as long as you are willing to listen.

6. Sharing is caring

Feedback is useful to all members of your company, from top management to the summer intern. It is necessary to share both positive and negative customer feedback and get everybody on the same page. Negative feedback means you need to reinvent part of your business. You will need your whole team to understand why. Positive feedback means you are doing something right. Let your team know. They deserve some of the glory, and their motivation and engagement will skyrocket.