Nowadays, customers express their opinions online whether you ask for them to do so or not and whether you are actively listening to them or not. While negative customer reviews that you do not address or respond to can lead to the demise of your company, these can also serve as an opportunity to improve your business in different ways. Customer feedback is a goldmine for you to tap into when you are looking for reasonable and legitimate ways to make major improvements in your business. You can easily obtain customer feedback by reading online reviews or soliciting comments through direct inquiries and customer satisfaction surveys. Remember, however, that it is not enough to simply ask for feedback. You must also act on it if you want to supercharge your business.
IMPROVES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
By collecting and acting on customer feedback, you are showing your customers that you care about their satisfaction and experience. As a result, they will be more likely to refer you to their own friends and family members, which can have a profound impact on your ability to generate sales in the future.
Focus your attention on all aspects of the sales experience that your customers are affected by. This includes the quality of products or services you offer, their experience when making a purchase and any post-purchase interactions they had with your company and more.
Remember to make it easy for them to reach out to you. Have a simple and easy feedback process, such as a direct link on your website or a survey that is emailed to each customer after the purchase has been completed.
INFLUENCES YOUR PRODUCT ROADMAP
When you regularly seek out and act on customer feedback, you can learn a lot about how your customers use your products or services and what features they like or dislike. This information is critical for making cost-effective and beneficial decisions during the product development process.
You may ask a focus group or a select group of your top customers or clients to try out a prototype and then provide feedback on it. Their feedback can be used to determine if the prototype is ready for full production or if it needs revisions so that it is more desirable and marketable. This simple step can help you avoid unnecessary expenses associated with launching a product that is not quite ideal or perfect. Involving your customers early on can improve the end result, speed up the process and even create a buzz about the new product so that it is launched successfully.
LEADS TO INCREASED PROFITS
Your goal is to retain as many customers as possible and to create a lengthy list of loyal customers. To accomplish this, you must actively use customer feedback to keep your finger on the pulse of customer satisfaction ratings and experience levels. Your customers may tell you about weaknesses that you have as well as strengths or benefits that your competition has. As a result, you will get the opportunity to quickly address any issues that may arise and take action as needed to improve your processes going forward. To simplify the process of analyzing results by time frames, tools such as Conjointly’s Time Series Analysis are great for this and help to see which areas need improvement.
There is also a financial incentive associated with ensuring that your customers are fully satisfied with your products or services as well as with the entire sales process. Customers who are happy and satisfied are more likely to become loyal. This means that you can potentially count on them for referrals and repeat sales in the future.
FINAL WORD
It can be intimidating and even frustrating or disheartening to learn that some of your customers are unhappy with your company’s level of service, quality of your products or other factors involved in the sales process. However, rather than perceiving these negative comments as a sign of failure, try looking at them as a stepping stone for improvement and building better customer relationships.
You can learn a lot about what your customers want and need when you are open to listening to their feedback. If you do not already have open and convenient channels for gathering customer feedback, now is a great time to make this positive change and start listening to what your customers have to say.
