Customer Feedback: You Know It’s Important, but How Often Do You Get Authentic Feedback
Do you know what your customers are saying after they leave your store or website? Understanding who your customers are and knowing what they want is crucial if you want to grow your business.
If you have a brick and mortar location, you can always ask the customer about their experience right as they checkout. But, I’m venturing to guess that their immediate feedback may not be 100% true/authentic. I think some people won’t give you enough information. I think some customers are just going to say it was “Good” or “I’ll be back soon” to avoid an awkward situation.
It’s possible that your employees might forget to ask for a customer’s feedback, too. Most likely, they’re also dreading having to ask for feedback face-to-face.
Your next option is to ask after a customer completes a purchase.
I believe there are really only two ways to approach the customer at this point, and that is via text message or email. By using a tool, like Repcheckup, you can send them a simple message saying something along the lines of “Would you recommend us to friends or family?”
If you can get a “Yes” from them, these customers will be sent to your Google my Business profile page, or another review site, to have them leave their positive feedback publicly. When you gather more online reviews on popular review sites, you’ll begin to build a “portfolio” that shows potential customers the benefits of working with you over your competition.
Don’t stop there!
Now that you’ve started to see more customer feedback, let’s analyze this data. Don’t read the review and then just move on. Take time to aggregate all reviews to provide a snapshot of the customer feedback.
Read every review you receive and talk about it internally. Figure out how to repeat that process the customer experienced if it was good, and how to change things if a bad review does filter through. Collect this information and make time to discuss at least every single month. Don’t wait until the end of the year to talk about this stuff. MAKE TIME NOW!
Analyzing feedback is an integral step toward online success. What if you’re losing customers because of issues with your website? Your bounce rate could be very high, but you waited until the end of the year meeting to figure it out.
Find problems/issues/customer complaints today and fix them now. You don’t want to lose another potential customer to the competition because of something that could be fixed right away.
A Tip for Your End-of-the-Year Meeting
What we suggest you do prior to your end-of-the-year meeting is reach out to all your customers that left you some type of feedback. Ask them to fill out a more in-depth survey for your use only. Then discuss the data that at your annual meeting.
Always make sure you’re learning about your customers. Things change so quickly and trends disappear just as quickly as they appear. Make sure your business is ready to pivot when necessary and build on the good things you’re doing!
Build on Your Success! Ask Questions.
You’ve worked so hard to get your business to where it is today… or maybe you’re just starting a new adventure – always make sure to keep improving and asking customers for their feedback. It never hurts to ask. The only way you’re going to get feedback is to ask.
