A lot of businesses take a laid-back approach to customer feedback, leaving it at the bottom of the to-do list for another time or when the need is more urgent. But from our experience, this is a business owners greatest mistake.
With customer expectations higher than ever and incredibly competitive markets across all industries, a business needs to go above and beyond to offer an exceptional customer experience.
There are a lot of ways you can deliver excellent customer service; making yourself easy to contact, friendly and helpful staff, a flawless product…. but if you are not communicating with your customers, how do you know what the experience for them is really like?
Here are just some of the many reasons you should ask for feedback on a regular basis:
- Consumer tastes and needs change – do your customers still need your product or service? Is there a new, more advanced solution on the market now?
- Are your customers happy with your staff – are there any issues with customer service that you haven’t been made aware of? Do you staff require more training?
- Customers appreciate human contact – with social media and instant messaging now a central part of everyday life, having a personal phonecall from a real person can make a huge impact
A common mistake we see business owners make is that they leave asking for customer feedback until it is too late and they are already losing customers. To get the most from feedback, you need to be asking for it as part of a consistent strategy.
So, how do you implement a successful feedback strategy?
- Decide on a set of questions to put to your customers
- Decide on how you will ask your customers to provide this feedback
- Have a system in place to record the feedback and allow managers to use it as part of the decision making process
- Nominate a person(s) to manage the process and ensure it runs smoothly
- Put together a list of your customers and divide them into ‘batches’ so that you can gradually work through your customer base without overwhelming the system
Once you have started collecting feedback, our most important tip of all is to take the time to read it. Look through the comments, take note of what your customers say and use it to influence positive change within your business.
If you would like to find out more about the benefits of implementing a customer feedback strategy into your business and how to get started, then contact us today.