As digital technology advances, businesses are continually increasing the level of convenience provided to their customers. Consumers have come to expect a high-quality, personalised experience whenever they interact with a product or service, whether that interaction happens digitally or offline. For businesses, delivering on these new expectations requires a deep understanding of every aspect of the customer experience, so as to enhance those elements of the user journey that might be inhibiting a purchase or creating a negative impression.
Customer feedback
Whether or not your business is primarily digital, customer feedback should be a part of your analytics strategy. Some common methods for collecting customer feedback include the following:
- Online surveys: tools such as SurveyMonkey and Google Forms provide a cheap and convenient mechanism to gather in-depth insights into how your customers perceive and interact with your business.
- Social listening tools: platforms like Sprout Social and Hootsuite allow you to track and analyse conversations people are having about you on social media.
- Chatbots: if you have a chatbot as part of your website or app, it’s worth taking a look at the questions visitors are frequently asking to understand how to serve them better, more relevant information.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) tools: platforms such as Promoter.io are specifically designed to collect feedback on elements of the customer experience in the form a Net Promoter Score, which is calculated by determining the proportion of users that have positive, negative, or neutral opinions of your brand, product, or service.
Personalising user journeys
A critical component of delivering high-quality, convenient customer experiences is personalisation. Web, app, email, and marketing technology platforms have made it easier than ever to deliver communications, services and products specifically tailored to the needs of the individual. The way a visitor interacts with a website determines what ads appear in their Instagram feed, or how strongly their encouraged to make purchase in email campaigns. Optimising these experiences to maximise relevance and convenience increases the likelihood of acquiring or retaining that customer.
Needless to say, data is the driving force behind user journey personalisation, and direct feedback is one of the most valuable pieces of data you’re likely to collect from your customers. Integrating your customer feedback platforms with your customer relationship management (CRM) platform or your content personalisation tools allows you to shape experiences around the feedback your customers have provided. For example, if you identify a customer that’s overwhelmingly positive about you and your product (in NPS terms a “promoter”), you might want to encourage that user to make another purchase or offer them discounts if they can sign up a friend. Conversely, “detractors”, that is, people who’ve had a negative experience can be very damaging to your reputation, particularly if their subsequent experiences with your brand exacerbate those negative perceptions. For example, you don’t want to ask a detractor to upgrade to a premium plan or post a product review on Google.
How to use customer feedback effectively
Identify where feedback will have the greatest impact.
When deciding what you want to gather feedback on, consider what the most important components of your customer experience are, for example customer service staff, your website, your product etc.
Avoid oversaturating your audience.
The objective of customer feedback is ultimately to enhance the customer experience. You don’t want your feedback mechanism to be such an impediment that it creates a negative experience for your customers. Make sure to:
- Collect only as much data as you need to make a decision.
- Monitor the frequency with which customers are asked to provide feedback.
- Make surveys short and to the point.
Integrate your customer feedback tools with your CRM.
Integrating your customer feedback and customer relationship systems will allow you to automatically tailor your customer experiences to the attitudes and perceptions individuals have about your brand.
Monitor results.
Ensure your customer feedback has an immediate impact by monitoring the results and reacting as quickly as possible. Ensure you have a statistically significant result before making any major changes.
