Today’s blog post looks at using customer feedback to improve your .au business, and the importance of having an effective strategy in place to support this. We look at 1) how feedback may be obtained, including through your .au website/email address and social media pages; 2) how to respond to feedback in a pragmatic way; and 3) what can be learned as a result.
Obtaining feedback
There are a range of digital communication channels available to seek customer feedback, including your website, your blog or by conducting customer surveys. An example of a feedback survey would be an email to a customer asking them to rate details of their experience after making a purchase, or an email survey to gauge interest in an upcoming product launch.
In this blog post, the team at Hubspot looks at strategies to assist in obtaining customer feedback. Their number one piece of advice is to send a follow up email once a service has been provided or a purchase has been made. They note this is “The most frequently used method to request customer feedback”. Another strategy they suggest is to record visitor website sessions and replay them to better understand how a user engages with their website. They recommend tools such as Hotjar and Yandex to assist with recording website activity and interpreting visitor behaviour.
Responding to feedback
If a customer goes to the trouble of submitting feedback, they will likely appreciate a response from the business they have provided it to. A follow up email — especially one that addresses any shortcomings in the service — will show that you are listening.
Many users share their thoughts on social media, as by doing this their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the business is visible in a public forum, for all eyes to see. While receiving positive feedback can be uplifting, receiving negative feedback can be more difficult which is why lifelong learning provider, upskilled.edu.au has provided an overview of How to handle negative feedback on social media. They suggest implementing a company-wide strategy to provide guidelines for employees, and highlight the importance of keeping customer communication consistent.
Learning from feedback
Above all, it is important to learn from feedback and use it to your advantage. Whether it is positive, negative or not particularly constructive at all, feedback can be used to improve one or more aspects of your business. In this comprehensive guide from survey solutions provider SurveyMonkey, they explain how to put survey data to use by sharing it with your team and evaluating its overall success. They suggest taking a walk in the customer's shoes to better understand their journey — a solid piece of advice for any business.
By incorporating feedback into core processes and being active in responding to both positive and negative feedback you can learn a lot about the people that are essential to your business — your customers, and use this to shape your overarching strategy.
Have a question, some feedback or an idea for a future blog post? Email us at blog@afilias.com.au today.