How Customer Feedback Can Improve Your Business

Customer feedback is tremendously valuable for any business. Utilizing it can increase sales, improve repeat business and referrals, boost revenue and shape business development. Your customers offer a unique perspective on how your products or services fulfill expectations and compare to the competition.

To make effective business decisions, you should be proactive in engaging with customers. You can ask your customers for their opinions and views to help guide and inform your decision-making. Customer feedback is also a great way to catch issues before they become detrimental to your business and shows customers their input is valued.

Collecting Customer Feedback
Outlining your desired outcomes is essential. Before you begin collecting customer feedback it’s important to clearly define why you want to collect feedback and what you hope to achieve. You should consider the following before you start collecting feedback: parts of the user experience you want to improve, what you will do with the data you collect, and which channels work best for your goals (HelpScout).

You also need to have a system in place for collecting feedback so your business is able to understand and respond appropriately. According to Kissmetrics, the following are the 5 best ways to get consistent (and high quality) feedback from customers:

– Surveys
– Feedback boxes
– Reach out directly
– User activity
– Usability tests

As soon as you find a process that works for your business and start collecting high-quality feedback from your customers on a regular basis, you should make it a standard practice. This provides a rare opportunity to open up a dialogue with your customers and a chance to develop rapport. Relevant feedback will give you insight into what your business is doing well, what areas could be improved, and how your customers really feel about the product or service your deliver.

Monitoring and using feedback will also give you the chance to intercept a problem and fix it before you lose a customer. In fact, customers who experience a problem that you are able to fix are more likely to become outspoken advocates for your business and remain loyal. Customer satisfaction is essential to business growth, revenue and sales. When you collect feedback from your customers consistently, it can help you build a more profitable and sustainable business.