Customer feedback can provide organisations with a wealth of opportunities. Yet it is through having an effective strategy, to collect and enact the findings, that you can fully unlock their secrets.
There is gold dust in your insights that, harnessed properly, can transform nuggets of customer feedback into gems of company progression.
For better or worse, you need to be listening to what your customers are saying.
“Your unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning”.
Bill Gates
Whether it’s confirmation of your process through the singing of your praises. Or the illumination of your shortcomings that you otherwise wouldn’t have been aware of.
The key to accessing this insight, is an effective feedback strategy.
Why Collect Customer Feedback?
Before explaining the how, lets dive into the why.
In short, without listening to your customers, you can’t hope to improve.
“If we don’t know what’s right, we can’t do more of it.
If we don’t know what’s wrong, we can’t do less of it.
Without customer feedback, we are destined to fail.”
Brian Halligan, CEO Hubspot
The feedback you collect, should dictate your future strategy.
Whether that is specifically for social proof and to encourage other people to use your product, or, to learn about where you can grow as a business.
Feedback, in itself, fosters development.
As Halligan alludes to, not collecting feedback is the business equivalent of stumbling around in the dark. You can’t find the answer you’re looking for without turning on the light.
Adhering to the following 3 steps will help you create an effective customer feedback strategy and unlock the insights within.
3 Simple Steps To Create A Customer Feedback Strategy
1 – Ask!
Simple enough, but when it comes to feedback, it truly is a case of don’t ask, don’t get.
Feedback can be collected in any number of ways, from automatically triggered surveys through to customer relations courtesy calls.
If you’re not asking for insights, you’re going to struggle to implement necessary change.
Use these opportunities to collect the data that matters most to you.
The first step, is to ask.
2 – Investigate The Data
Now you’ve got the data, it’s time to do something with it.
Block out time in your calendar to take a deeper dive into what is being said about you and your operations.
Collecting is only the beginning, you have to investigate to sift out the nuggets.
Reviews at each end of the spectrum can cause both delight and disappointment but the key is to look for trends.
Outlying anomalies are important to note but if you keep reading about the same roadblock, you can infer its an aspect of your process requiring immediate attention.
Taking a closer look at that which you’ve collected, will help guide you down the right path for development.
3 – Showcase Positive Stories & Enact Positive Change
For better of worse, feedback requires action.
When things goes well, capture those stories and share them as social proof of your ability to go above and beyond.
Likewise, echo individual praise back to those responsible. Feedback can be a major morale boost for a job well done.
On the other side of the coin, if you’ve fallen short of expectations, don’t shy away from the fact.
Embrace the criticism and make sure to not only enact positive change but communicate your actions back to those who were disappointed.
This helps to showcase that your strategy isn’t solely for appearances, but results in real change for the better.
BONUS – Make Feedback A Process, Not A One Off
An effective customer feedback strategy means integrating it into your best practice workflows.
Not only does this ensure the flow of information is constant, rather than erratic and disjointed, but allows you to cultivate relationships with key customers at consistent intervals.
By nurturing these relationships, you’re not only acquiring a steady flow of insights, but enhancing the positive perception of your company as a business that cares about the success of their customers.
Proactively gathering and investigating also ensures you can alter issues before they snowball into major problems and promote tales of your excellence as soon as they come to light.
Make sure your strategy provides the perfect platform for future organisational success.
Intrigued to learn more? Check out our Insights Hub to keep your business at the cutting edge.
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- August 10th, 2021