When it comes to putting your company in command of its customer relations, nothing short of obtaining sufficient amounts of accurate customer feedback will do. The information you can learn from the customers who love and hate your brand is truly priceless. The data you collect from customers will be the guide that helps you shape and reshape your company, improve its products and even make changes to how your brand is perceived in the minds of consumers you do not even have a trusted relationship with yet. Now, that is huge, and it can make radical improvements to your profit margin along the way; however, you must first get your hands on this massive body of data before it will be of any real use to your company. If you are not certain how to obtain this information from your customers, then it is time to listen and learn. Here are some strategies to follow.
The Customer Survey
One of the time honored methods of obtaining great customer feedback is the customer survey. Significant thought must go into framing questions that helps you gain the information you most want to obtain from your customers. In general, your customers will not want to take a survey unless there is something in it for them. This is an awesome time to offer a discount, a reward or some other type of promotional perk to any customer willing to fill out and return a company survey for your records.
Reaction to a Limited Offer
If you want to know how popular a product you are offering is with your customer base, try introducing it through a limited offer. When the time frame of that limited offer runs out, take it out of your customer’s reach. Then give it some time to see if your customers contact you to beg you to bring it back or if there is a big stink made over the issue by customers on websites like YouTube and Facebook. If there is, then you immediately have feedback that tells you that you might have something your customers truly love, and you need to prepare to capitalize on that product idea when returning it to the marketplace. If your customers do not react at all to your taking it away, then that may be a strong signal that your customers did not really think much about that product. If you are not sure, you can always try reintroducing the product at a later date and observe its performance with customers and see how that changes key metrics in your customer feedback analysis.
Demographic Studies
Some of the best customer feedback is not obtained directly from the customers stated opinions, but could still be crucial information needing to be fed into your enterprise feedback management program nonetheless. The simple reality is that some customer information is best observed by how a given demographic of society reacts to your products or services. For example, certain products and services appeal more to African American customers and others appeal more to Hispanic customers. Gathering data on demographic responses will help your company to better focus its efforts on which products and which services need to be offered in which regions, taking the guess work out of how to regionally promote your brand.
Online Reviews
Since customers love to give their opinions about products and services they have tried out, the Internet can truly be an endless source of customer feedback data. In fact, many product reviews online reflect a rather raw picture of how customers perceive the quality and worth of your company’s products and services. From blogs to retail sites, there are always fans and critics of companies writing their reviews for all to see. Sampling these reviews is one way to gain some perspective on how your customers truly feel about your brand. According to some experts on e-commerce conversions, you may also request product reviews from your customers on your website or through follow up emails with customers to get more directly involved in getting this type of customer feedback in your hands.
Your Customer Service Department
Never underestimate the massive amount of free customer feedback that can be obtained by establishing a quality customer service department. Typically, customers want to reach out and call a real person to hear their complaints and recommendations about your company and its products, and all you have to do is train your customer service reps to listen and record this free feedback. In general, this kind of data will often alert you to what is and is not working for your company in the here and now as well as in the past. Remember, a well-run customer service department is also your opportunity to put your company’s best foot forward, and it is here that you can let your customers know that their feedback matters and is taken seriously.
Conclusion
Valuable customer feedback can be obtained through a wide variety of direct and indirect methods of engagement with your customers. Whether you are asking your customers to speak their mind or observing how they react with product in hand, every piece of information you obtain through these methods of interaction adds to your company’s collective insights into the customers it serves. What you do with all that customer feedback will make all the difference in how your company relates to the customers to which your continued business success depends on so much.
Dixie Somers
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