Customer feedback provides insight into what features of a product or service are effective and what changes should be made to enhance the user experience. Here are the tools to actively collect, analyze and respond to customers’ feedback.
Switching providers is practically free and just as simple as changing, for instance, your shampoo, or food oil. Think from a company’s perspective. Your customers have nothing to lose – they will jump to another vendor without a second thought. The minute you fall short of their expectations, you lose them.
Businesses risk losing up to 9.5% of their revenue owing to poor customer experiences.
Is there a way out?
Starbucks was able to move past the 2008 financial crisis with one simple trick – feedback.
Back in 2007-08, the then Starbucks CEO Howard D. Schultz rolled out “My Starbucks Idea” – a platform for customers to give feedback.
As a result, the brand received over 93,000 ideas from about 1.3 million social media users. The coffee-house giant implemented these ideas, changing store layouts to new items. The strategy helped the brand reignite the trust among customers, thereby helping to pull out of the financial meltdown.
Consumers are the ones who bring in revenue, and having a customer-centric approach is directly correlated with business success. Also, amid the IMF warning that the world could be in recession in 2023, companies must be ready to face the upcoming “recessionary waves”. This necessitates businesses to have customer feedback as it reveals consumer satisfaction levels and can help spot areas for product improvement.
Tools at our disposal
Businesses require the right set of tools and strategies to augment the same. For businesses, it’s still a guessing game, as consumer feedback tools offer a wide range of functions. They employ numerous data collection methods, gather consumer feedback, produce various types of reports, and offer diverse user insights.
Let’s simplify. To begin with,
SurveyMonkey is a good option to start with. It ensures smooth sharing of the survey with fine control over who can view and edit. The online survey software also allows free integrations with popular apps, including Slack, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, Hubspot, and more. Collecting live customer feedback across channels, including email, SMS, website, and mobile apps, and preparing a central dashboard to analyze CX, makes it even better.
Moreover, one can easily export files across different formats (PDF, CSV, PPT, XLS, or SPSS), and its encrypted survey platform reduces the concerns around data security.
Moving on, Hubspot’s customer feedback software is also a strong contender. It provides customized surveys that can be shared via a web link or mail. The platform helps brands choose from pre-built Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), and customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys to gauge customer loyalty, thus helping to strategize better.
Additionally, the availability of a built-in feedback dashboard helps visualize insights and spot opportunities to improve specific points in the customer journey.
With a highly intuitive user interface, Typeform is possibly the next customer feedback tool to bet on. The platform helps companies create customized interactive surveys, forms, and even tests. It features a vast library of visually appealing forms, survey and quiz templates, a built-in media library, as well as high-level reports.
Also, the platform lets users plug in their existing customer database, data visualization, and easy-to-share reports across teams within an organization.
UserReport is a collection of customizable tools for gathering consumer feedback that reveals the identities and goals of a brand’s end users. The platform is based on simple tools – one is a survey, and the other is a feedback form. It runs as an integrated component of a company’s website or app, enabling them to directly engage with consumers and learn about who they are, what they are looking for, and how they (brands) can improve.
It collects data about visitors, such as gender, age and satisfaction, and presents the results from the survey as easy-to-read and understand reports.
InMoment is yet another tool that uses voice, text, video, and active listening to gather customer feedback and even encourage them to provide online reviews. The platform provides a variety of reports for an in-depth examination, although it can be challenging for new users to comprehend the reporting tools.
Help transform strategies for optimal CX
All the above-mentioned tools automate gathering feedback and converting it into simple data points to evaluate for a better customer experience.
With the help of rating-based questions, firms can quickly determine their customers’ satisfaction level. Customer loyalty and satisfaction are key determinants of a company’s financial performance. Numerous advantages, including increased market share, decreased costs, or greater revenue, are closely related. Hence, a detailed customer feedback analysis can help take corrective actions in advance.
For example, Apple uses Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey rate to know about the detractors and follow up with them to reverse the scenario. It helps the brand improve its in-store experience.
Further, with valuable feedback when making product feature choices and adding new features, companies do implement suggested improvements. Consider the “IdeaExchange” platform by Salesforce, which manages customer suggestions and handles user requests for new features. Customers can even cast votes for the features they thought the business should implement.
A brand knows its product well, and a lot of research goes in before implementing a new feature or rolling out a new service – hence it reduces the chance of spotting any imperfection. Customers being the end-user, can easily let brands know what is actually lacking, thus helping them improve experiences over time.
To conclude, there is no prize in guessing that “customer forgiveness” is no longer an option. Hence, listen to customers and be a proactive brand rather than a reactive one.
