By observing and listening to feedback from your customers, you can create better experiences and waste less time fixing problems in your business.
Before you start asking your customers for feedback, there’s two things you should know – how will you get insights?
You can get insights from your customers both passively and actively.
The best way to find out which topics your staff and customers want to learn more about is to use passive insights – looking and listening to the common enquiries – or what we like to call “ethical spying”.
If you’re running a small business, you can measure your website traffic and where your customers are coming from, what they like and what they’re looking for through tools like Google Analytics.
Something else you could try doing is to review the volumes and types of keywords customers are searching on your website which will help uncover the common issues they need answers for.
A more reliable way to find out what customers really want is through active insights – directly asking staff and customers for feedback, however this can disturb your customer experience because usually only very happy or very dissatisfied customers will take the time to provide feedback and you might be unnecessarily asking disinterested customers for feedback.
Have you tried sending surveys and reviewing comments and feedback, including Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure exactly how your customers feel?
Once you’ve reviewed and categorised the customer insights, you can easily determine the Top Tasks & Irritants that you need to make sure you get done consistently and iron out any issues.
Businesses that listen to their customers and respond to customer feedback will improve overall customer satisfaction. If you provide your staff with the knowledge to resolve the majority of problems that your customers have, your customers will be happier, trust you more and be more likely to provide return business.
Uncovering customer insights can be costly, particularly if you’re planning to do complex things like implement surveys to gather feedback. You need to choose the right balance to get the insight without interrupting your customer experience.
More often than not, you will already know what customers are saying – they are not shy to tell you. If you don’t know what customers are saying, start with asking your staff – they are your biggest customer advocate and will easily be able to tell you what customers really want.