Although it may not seem like a big deal, customer feedback is an important factor in the world of business. It has become one of the primary driving forces of the growth of a business in the long run.
Before we talk about its importance to your business, what exactly is customer feedback? It refers to the very process of asking questions or seeking opinions that cause customers to formulate judgments. Why does that matter? Because customers might not consciously realize the things they love about your product or service unless you seek feedback regarding it.
Collecting customer feedback can assist a business to adjust its decisions to fit the needs of the customer. As a result, this leads to the improvement of customer experience. Customer feedback can be collected through surveys or reviews posted by clients online.
Why is Customer Feedback Important?
Now that you have an idea of what customer feedback is, we have compiled a list of reasons collecting customer feedback is important in your business.
- Products and Services can be Improved by Customer Feedback.
When you first introduce a new brand, product, or service to the market, you need to have an idea about the needs of the customer. So, it is important to conduct market research to have an idea of whether potential customers would be interested to buy what you’re selling. It can also give you insight into how you could improve your product or service.
However, you can only use market research to your advantage after customers have used your product or service. Why? Because then you would be able to learn about your product or service’s strengths, weaknesses, and the customer’s experience through feedback from customers. Take note that customer needs and wants change with time.
Customer feedback gives insight into what customers like about your product or service and what can be done to improve their experience. Regardless of whether you have great expertise in the industry your business operates in, customer insight will also be more valuable than professional knowledge. Collecting feedback ensures that your business will meet customer expectations like solving their problems or fulfilling their needs.
- Customer Satisfaction can be Measured with Customer Feedback.
Two important factors that contribute to a business’s financial performance are customer satisfaction and loyalty. These factors are directly linked to factors of success such as increased market share, lower costs, and higher revenue. Without a doubt, you want to ensure that your customers are happy with what your business offers. The best way to find out whether your product or service meets expectations is by gathering feedback from your clients.
- Collecting Customer Feedback Shows Clients that Their Opinions are Valued.
When you ask for customer feedback, it lets them know that their opinion is important to you. This results in their attachment to your business because they are involved. Hearing their voice assists in forming a business relationship with your customers.
If you’re considering getting committed brand ambassadors in the future, collecting customer feedback is your best bet. Recommendations by brand ambassadors are a cost-effective way to gain new customers and become more trustworthy in the eyes of existing and potential customers.
Individuals always appreciate being asked if they are satisfied (or unsatisfied) with your product or service. When you collect feedback, they could feel that your business’s goals lie in fulfilling their needs and not solely gain profit.
- Customer Feedback Assists in the Creation of a Great (if not best) Customer Experience.
Marketing today heavily relies on experiences individuals have with products or services. So, shifting your business focus on providing the best experience for your customer will result in their loyalty remaining to your business. And guess what? The most effective way to do this is to collect feedback from customers with questions like “What did you like about the product or service?” and “What can be improved?”.
- Customer Retention is Improved with Customer Feedback.
A satisfied customer will stay loyal to your business. However, a customer with unsatisfied needs will most likely find a better alternative and leave. So, customer feedback helps a business determine if clients are satisfied and detect which areas require improvement. For example, when an unsatisfied customer expresses their disappointment, you can immediately respond and solve the issue with a solution. Through the resolution, it provides a perfect opportunity to win back the client and potentially increase customer loyalty.
- Feedback from Customers is a Reliable Source of Information for other Consumers.
Consumers no longer trust commercials or professional advice as much as they used to due to social media influence nowadays. Some individuals prefer to seek for opinions of other customers who have already used the product or service they’re looking to buy. Because of this, many businesses have implemented a review system on their websites.
This shows that customer feedback is not only important to your business but also to other customers. Therefore, you should ensure that both you and your clients can easily access opinions and reviews of your product or service.
- Data for Business Decision-making can be Obtained by Gathering Feedback.
In a highly competitive market, decision-making based on loose guesses isn’t recommended. Instead, successful business owners gather useful data to assist the development of current and future strategies. What kind of data? Customer feedback.
Collecting customer feedback is a reliable source of data that is useful to decision-making in your business. It will assist in better understanding clients and their needs or wants. However, this is not always the case. If product development is no longer needed for your business, then shift your focus towards brand promotion to increase exposure. Although customer feedback is valuable, you need to be able to translate the data obtained into key points for your business.
How to Use Customer Feedback for the Growth of your Business?
Now that you know the importance of collecting feedback is for your business, let’s talk about how you can use it to benefit the growth of your business.
Even the most successful business owners didn’t just fall into a perfect product-market fit, they had to course-correct their business until they got it right. With that being said, savvy business owners can benefit from the rewards of growth immediately by keeping an open mind to listening, learning, and making changes in their product or service to improve the experience of their customers.
- Your Business Can Gain Insights from Customer Reviews
Customer feedback not only influences the purchase decisions of other consumers but also collects valuable information about your product or service that can benefit your business.
For example, you retail clothes online and customers are complaining that some styles of your clothing items are not true-to-size. Instead of throwing your inventory away, you can consider more cost-effective solutions to address the issue. You could add a size chart to the product pages of the clothing items that the customers had issues with.
Resolving issues with simple fixes improves the experience of the customer. This leads to the possibility of more positive reviews, then an increase in sales.
- You Can Add a Contact Form or Poll to Your Business Website
Want to collect direct feedback from customers? Contact forms and polls are great ways to do so.
Let’s use the same clothing store example. In this scenario, you released a new line of clothing items and want to ensure that the sizes fit as promised. By sending polls to customers who purchased your new products, you collect feedback that is relevant and useful on their satisfaction or other aspects of the product that provide a scope of how customers felt about their purchase. Here’s an example of a Strikingly user that implemented a contact form to collect feedback on their website.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
Besides polls, you can include a comment section on your business’s contact form to collect feedback from customers on an occurring basis.
Considering engagement with customer feedback ultimately leads to increased customer satisfaction. You can use the feedback to make significant improvements to the experience of your customer which in return contributes to the growth of your business.
Now that you’ve read through the importance of customer feedback and how you can use it to your advantage, are you convinced to implement it in your business? If so, you can use Strikingly’s brand new feature called “Show Product Reviews.” Here’s how you can access it.
First, log on to your account and head to the site editor. Once you’ve added the store option to your website, click the “Store” button as seen below.
Image taken from Strikingly product
Once you select it, it should take you to a window that looks like the image below. Click “Product Reviews” under the store tab.
Image taken from Strikingly product
The final step is to click “Enable Product Reviews” and you’re good to go!
Image taken from Strikingly product
With this new feature, your customers can submit their reviews for products purchased from your business. You also have control over which reviews to display for each product on your website. Did we mention that Strikingly is also an overall website builder?
Yes, you heard that right! Strikingly is a website builder that allows you to customize and design your e-commerce website for free. It offers many features besides the “Show Product Reviews” feature, regardless of whether you’re using the free or paid plan. So what are you waiting for? Sign up for an account and begin collecting customer feedback today.
