Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil: do you know what is being said about your business?

Customer feedback is an invaluable tool for a business. First of all it lets you know what your customers think of you, which is probably the most important part of every business; but, by listening and learning from their feedback, your business will be more attuned to customer requirements and expectations, which will lead to improvements in the products or services you provide.

Below are four practical examples of how your business could benefit from customer feedback.

Website Optimisation

As the first point of contact for many businesses, a website should be optimised for user experience. Marketers and web experts have many tricks up their sleeves to improve websites, but sometimes suffer from analysis paralysis. We forget about the most valuable from of website optimisation, user feedback.

Giving your customers the opportunity to make comments about your website (eg via a feedback form or pop-up survey) will provide invaluable information so make sure you listen to it!

Customer feedback enables you to simplify the customer’s journey through your web channel, develops the visibility of information (e.g. product FAQs), and improves order processing. In essence the more intelligence you gather the more streamlined your customer experience is going to be, helping you reduce costs and maximise sales.

Product

If you have many products or just one, customer feedback is a great resource for development. A customers experience – good or bad – will impact future purchasing behaviour, so it is important you know exactly what your customers think and where you could improve. They will tell their friends and family, and potentially many others via online review sites so monitor and respond accordingly.

Data protection

Data protection is not what comes to mind when thinking about customer feedback, but when a customer chooses how they’d like to be contacted every business is legally bound to respect their wishes. As well as capturing their permission at the time of receiving their data, keeping in regular contact with your customers and giving them the opportunity to change their mind on contact preferences will help you adhere to the key principles of the Data Protection Act, and can make sure you are selling to the right people.

Courier Services

Customer feedback can also provide you the opportunity to evaluate the courier service you use, if you use a third party provider. For example, if you give your customers the opportunity they can notify you whether they thought their delivery was brilliant, satisfactory or unsatisfactory. A good way to capture this data is with a regular email survey or a pre-paid parcel insert that will allow you to monitor the performance and trends of your carriage providers.

Delivery experience can determine if a customer will order from you again so understanding if your customers would choose to repeat the experience, or recognising signs that your chosen providers are/are not coping could be a lifeline before you reach peak trading.

We have pointed out four ways that customer feedback could help your business. Regardless of the type of business you are in, knowing what people are saying about your business is vital for customer retention and ultimately the survival of your business. So keep those ears open!!

If you are interested in how Orbital Response can help with contact centre services, please do not hesitate to get in touch.