Customer feedback: Creative ways to ask for a review

The best way to find out how your customers feel about your business is to ask them by collecting customer feedback. Customer feedback is the information a business receives from customers about its product or service. This can be written or verbal criticisms that show the company’s level of customer satisfaction.    

Most businesses in various industries can benefit from properly collecting customer feedback. Saas companies use feedback like feature requests to guide on new product features and bug fixes. Restaurants use customer feedback to identify what to add or remove from their menus and dining experiences. 

Retail companies can also improve customer satisfaction by using customer insights to examine their shopping experience and product selections. 

Both positive and negative feedback are important to help a business make informed decisions about improvements. Happy customers tell you where you’re getting things right and angry customers tell you where you’re getting things wrong.   

Why should you gather customer feedback?

Customer feedback is important if you want to grow your business and keep happy clients coming back. Make it a priority to ask them about their experience with you. These are the people you want to satisfy and asking them how they feel is a direct way to know if you’re getting it right.

Collecting customer feedback helps you understand your customer experience better. You’ll have valuable insights from the customer’s perspective into how much value your brand is truly offering them. 

Feedback is the guide that helps you identify product improvement areas. It shows you how your product may or may not be meeting customer expectations. 

How do you collect customer feedback? 

There are several easy ways for you to collect customer feedback. With Simpu, you can collect customer feedback via email, sms, social media, live chat, and other online communication channels. You can also analyze all your feedback data on the platform to help you reach accurate conclusions. 

When you want to gather customer feedback, take advantage of the various ways you can reach your customers.

• ‍Send customer surveys via email.

Leverage your email list to get direct feedback from the people interacting with your business. Let customers know you care about their input by asking them to be part of your product or service development process.   

Including survey to your emails is a simple and effective way to collect customer data. You can send an email questionnaire after a customer makes a purchase or at another significant point in the customer journey. 

Investing in email automations will make collecting feedback fast, easy, and effective. To get the best results, send embedded surveys that are short and easy for customers to fill.   

• ‍Collect customer feedback via SMS.

SMS marketing is a quick and easy way to reach out to your customers directly. You can send an SMS to ask customers about their experience after interacting with your brand. It doesn’t stress the customer and you’ll receive immediate information.  

SMS surveys get you real-time feedback you can act on to solve customers’ problems. SMS open rates can be as high as 98% which means your messages will definitely be seen by your audience. 

• ‍Use customer engagement software.

A customer engagement software provides a centralized platform to collect feedback from multiple sources such as social media, email, surveys, and website forms. This ensures that all feedback is captured in one place, making it easier to analyze and respond to.

With customer engagement software, you can monitor feedback in real-time. This means you can promptly address any negative feedback or issues that arise, demonstrating your responsiveness to customers and preventing potential reputation damage.

• ‍Have conversations in person or virtually.

Set up short customer interviews to get instant feedback about your business performance. Talking to people in person is one of the best ways to collect customer feedback. You can learn a lot about how someone feels from nonverbal communication. With technology, you can set up a 10 mins zoom call and find out how to use that negative comment to improve on customer experiences with your business.

Consider what people say and how they say it to get an accurate understanding of their experience. Make it clear at the end of the conversation that you’re willing to act on the feedback you’ve received. 

• ‍Nurture an online customer community.

Keep your customers conversing freely by creating an online community where they can ask questions and discuss with fellow customers. People would share their opinions without feeling like they are reporting directly to the company. 

You can easily gather customer feedback by following the conversations happening in the community. Offer proactive customer service by providing answers when a customer can’t get it from the community. 

Allow customers to fill surveys on your website to make collecting feedback easier. This will help you build stronger customer relationships. 

• ‍Give incentives for completing surveys 

Give customers a reason to fill out your survey. As much as they'd like to just help you out, they would be more willing to take the time when they have something to gain. 

Offer a compensation to help you receive more honest customer feedback. 

What are the benefits of collecting customer feedback? 

Customer feedback benefits most companies by providing professional knowledge into how clients perceive their offerings. With actionable feedback, you’ll have the power to make deliberate changes that will make your customers happy. 

Here are a few ways your business can profit from collecting feedback. 

• ‍You’ll know your audience better.

Your customers are the reason you’re in business in the first place. Get to know your audience really well so you can give them the best service and customer experience possible. A good understanding of your audience helps you make customer focused decisions that improve your business performance.  

Unhappy customers give the most honest and useful feedback. When you understand what makes customers unhappy, you’ll know exactly where to put your efforts to move the business forward.  

• ‍You can increase your customer satisfaction level.

When you collect feedback, you have a chance to turn your most unhappy customers into satisfied repeat customers. People feel more supportive of brands that take real action when they provide feedback. Clients perceive that their patronage and opinions matter to the company which fosters a positive connection. 

Collecting customer feedback helps you manage customer satisfaction with the help of customer satisfaction scores. A customer satisfaction score is used to measure how satisfied customers are with your company through qualitative feedback. These are simple customer insights that can show you where you’re getting things right and what you’re doing wrong. 

Increasing your customer satisfaction score helps reduce churn and keep loyal clients coming back. Most companies would succeed by making high levels of customer satisfaction a primary business goal.    

• ‍You’ll improve your user experience. 

One of the things that makes customer feedback important is its ability to help you improve your customer experience. The feeling that clients have after engaging with your business determines whether you have met their expectations or not. 

Allow customers to share their opinions about their experiences with your company. Their feedback will show you what they did and didn’t enjoy about their experience. This is golden information to help you make the experience better for other customers moving forward. 

When an issue is reported to your support team, provide a solution as quickly as possible. An unhappy customer who had a bad experience would most likely return to a business that resolved their problem right away. 

• ‍Your product or service will be upgraded. 

You shouldn’t make assumptions when it comes to what clients require from your product or service. This can lead to a lot of hard work preparing things that your customers don’t want or need. 

To avoid wasting time on guesses, just ask your customers or potential customers what they want. Their feedback will give you a clear direction on how to upgrade your product to suit their needs. 

• ‍You’ll attract more customers.

Positive feedback helps attract new customers. About 99% of customers research local businesses online to read what other customers have to say about their experience. When potential customers find positive feedback online, it encourages them to patronize the business. 

Customer feedback can become great marketing for what the company sells. The information comes from the customer’s point of view and highlights the solution you provided to their problem. Other customers with similar problems would be convinced by the previous testimonials. 

You can use the information you get from customer feedback to tailor your marketing content to address customers’ specific concerns. 

Negative feedback can also attract new customers when they see how you’ve prioritized solving customers’ issues in the past. 

How can Simpu make collecting feedback easier?

• Simpu forms.

Simpu provides a user-friendly form builder that allows you to create customized feedback forms. With Simpu forms, you can easily request feedback from your customers, whether it's after a purchase, interaction, or any other touchpoint.

By collecting feedback directly on Simpu, you can conveniently gather customer insights and build a comprehensive database of customer data. This will enable you to identify both happy and unhappy customers and segment them based on their feedback, making it easier to target specific customer groups for personalized communication and tailored improvements.

• CSAT reviews.

Simpu's CSAT reviews feature enables businesses to gather valuable customer feedback after each conversation with their support agents. By measuring customer satisfaction with the support agent, businesses can identify areas for improvement and strive to deliver exceptional customer service.

You can effectively monitor the performance of your support team and gain insights into their interactions with customers. This allows you to assess the effectiveness of your support processes and identify any areas where improvements can be made.

With Simpu's intuitive interface and comprehensive features, you can streamline the process of collecting feedback, understand customer sentiment, and take proactive steps to enhance customer satisfaction. By leveraging these capabilities, you can build stronger relationships with your customers and foster a customer-centric approach throughout your organization.

Get started on a 14 day free trial and start collecting the feedback you need to turn your existing customers into loyal supporters.