How to improve customer feedback – five top tips for getting helpful comments from customers

The difference between a good business and a great one often comes down to the small details. Companies who show that they care about those details are generally more successful and more popular among their customers. Any prosperous business will tell you that part of the secret of getting to improve is to be good at both eliciting and listening to customer feedback.

Not all feedback is equal – improve customer feedback with 5 easy steps

Some feedback is helpful; other types of feedback are not. For example, a comment like “ok service” doesn’t give you any ideas on how you could transform “ok” into “great”. Here are some tips to make sure that the feedback you receive from customers is of the helpful and constructive variety:

1. Reach out to your customers
If left to themselves, customers will only offer feedback when something is seriously wrong or extremely good. However, you want to know about all the middle ground too. Be proactive, by training staff to ask for feedback directly and incorporating feedback questions into your order process.

2. Keep your questions short and simple
Answering feedback questions is always optional for the customer. You can encourage them to do so by making it easy. Keep the number of questions low and make them count. Multiple choice questions are a good option, but be sure to also ask some open questions, as these may attract valuable comments and suggestions.

3. Ask the right questions
Be sure to phrase your questions in such a way that the responses are more likely to be helpful. For example, the question “did you like our product” may simply yield an unhelpful “no” in response. “What could be improved about our product?” may result in more valuable responses.

4. Add colour and humour
Adding colour, images and humour to your feedback questions may not always be appropriate, but where it is possible, it will be appreciated. It’s easier to answer an attractive survey than a plain one.

5. Do it online
Make life easier for everyone involved and release your feedback survey online. Your customers can follow a link from your web page or in an email and answer with just a few clicks. What’s more, the collection and processing of data will be far simpler for you. Don’t forget to streamline your site for mobile surfers too.

Find out how Netigate could help you to set up an effective online survey for customer feedback!