Why Customer Feedback Is Important to Your Business

Are you a business owner looking to understand the importance of gathering customer feedback for your company?

You may already be gathering customer reviews and responding to feedback, but it’s worth outlining the reasons why getting customer reviews is important for your business.

Leading companies recognize the vital role of customer feedback in business. They regularly listen to their clients, they actively look for feedback posted by clients on social media and review sites, and they intentionally solicit feedback through various types of surveys.

Read more to learn about why customer feedback and reviews are essential to your business’ success.

What Is Customer Feedback?

Customer feedback refers to the feedback provided by clients or customers regarding their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a product or service and their overall experience with a company.

As a business owner, you can gather this feedback directly or indirectly. For example, customers can express their views about your brand on social media without mentioning your business (indirect). Feedback can also be gathered through the use of surveys, product reviews, and comments on your business’ website (direct).

Customer feedback can improve customer experience and adjust your actions to their needs. It helps ensure that you stay aligned with the needs of your target audience, even as those needs change over time.

To maintain a competitive edge, it’s essential to continuously listen to customer feedback, whether it is positive or negative, solicited or unsolicited.

In this post, you will learn the definition of customer feedback and its significance.

Importance of Customer Feedback To Your Business

Customer feedback is the first step to getting closer to your customers. It provides you with valuable information about what went right and what went wrong during the customer’s experience with your brand or business.

Displaying customer testimonials and reviews on your website can enhance your brand’s credibility, but only if they are prominently featured and utilized effectively. So, do not keep your successes hidden or expect your customers to discover them, but use these tips below to make the most of your testimonials.

Here are the most important reasons why customer feedback is crucial for your business.

1. Collecting customer feedback allows for the improvement of products and services.

When launching a new product, brand, or service, you may have a general idea of customer needs. You may have conducted market research before launching to see whether potential customers will be interested in purchasing your products. But only after the launch will you truly determine the actual potential of your products or services, their strengths, and their weaknesses.

And sometimes, customers give negative feedback about the experience they’ve had with your product or service. But do not worry! While it may seem disheartening, negative reviews can actually help you improve your products and business operations.

Customer feedback provides insight into strengths and areas for improvement of your product or service. This will help ensure that your final product will meet their expectations, address their issues, and fulfill their needs.

2. Collecting customer feedback allows you to gauge customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty are key factors that can impact your company’s financial performance. It can help your business achieve a higher market share, lower costs, and increased revenue. That is why it’s essential to ensure that your customers are satisfied with your products and services.

The best way to determine if you meet their expectations is to gather their feedback. Utilizing rating-based questions can help you assess satisfaction levels. Then, you can use the answers to these questions to predict the company’s future financial performance.

You can also use the NPS (Net Promoter Score) method. It is one of the most effective ways to measure, manage, and improve customer satisfaction. This metric is straightforward and versatile since it is based on a simple question that measures the likelihood of a customer recommending a brand to a friend. This makes it suitable for any business to use in their customer satisfaction management.

3. Collecting customer feedback provides a deeper understanding of your target audience.

Before launching your product or service, you may have likely conducted in-depth market research and buyer persona research to understand your target audience and their relationship with your business. While this research may have offered valuable insight, nothing is more valuable than the ones that come directly from your customers.

Customer feedback provides a deeper understanding of your customers. It gives you an idea about how your customers use your products and services and what they expect from your business. By understanding more about them and their needs, you can create experiences that are personalized to them and their needs.

4. Collecting customer feedback assists support teams in enhancing their skills.

The level of support you provide to your customers directly can affect your success with your products or services. That is why gathering customer feedback is important to help your support teams in assisting customers effectively since it offers specific insight into the performance of support representatives.

5. Collecting customer feedback can assist in acquiring new customers.

Customer reviews are a type of feedback, and buyers or shoppers often use them as a reference when completing buying decisions. Potential customers want to hear from existing customers about their experiences with your business. That is why it is important to collect and solicit reviews, so you can provide your potential customers with the information they seek when making purchasing decisions. This will also help you in acquiring new customers.

6. Collecting customer feedback allows you to start discussions with customers who are not satisfied.

Collecting customer feedback can help you identify customers who are not satisfied with your products or services. With this, you can open the door to address their issues and improve your relationship with them. Their feedback can also provide insight into their concerns and highlight potential areas that you need to improve in your operations or marketing. Furthermore, by addressing these issues, your business can achieve increased customer loyalty.

7. Gathering customer feedback demonstrates that you value their perspectives.

When you ask for feedback or reviews from customers, it shows that you value their opinion and that you are there and willing to serve them, not the other way around. It demonstrates that your primary goal is to address their issues and meet their needs rather than just obtain their money. By doing this, you position the customer as the central focus of your company, which is the correct way to run a business.

8. Customer feedback allows comparisons to the competition.

Customer feedback can allow your company to compare your products and services to those of your competitors. This can help your brand determine where you excel or fall short and create adjustments accordingly to address those needs. For example, if customers prefer a competitor’s headphones because of their style, the company may decide to add stylish headphones to their product line.

9. Customer feedback enhances brand credibility & social proof.

Positive customer feedback can help you enhance your brand’s credibility and social proof. It serves as a reference for potential customers when making a purchase decision. Additionally, exhibiting positive reviews and testimonials on a website can increase trust and perception of the integrity of the products and services you provide.

Customer Feedback Statistics

Want more evidence to convince you to invest in customer feedback? Here are some statistics you can rely on:

According to Redpoint Global, many consumers expect retailers to cater to their preferences and meet their expectations, with 82% of survey respondents holding this expectation.
A majority of consumers, 70%, state that they are highly likely to only buy from brands that understand and address their needs. (Redpoint Global)
Online reviews are widely read by customers, with 98% of consumers reading them for local businesses. (Brightlocal)
89% of consumers are ‘highly’ or ‘fairly’ likely to use a business that replies to all of its online reviews. (Brightlocal)
According to Nosto, user-generated content, like reviews, has a greater impact than influencer content or branded content, being 8.7x and 6.6x more impactful, respectively.
90% of people read reviews before visiting or making a purchase from a business. (Forbes)
A majority of customers, 83%, believe that they feel more loyal to brands that respond to and resolve their complaints. (Khoros)
68% of customers will increase their spending with a brand that recognizes and caters to their unique needs and preferences. (Khoros)
92% of consumers consult testimonials and customer reviews before making a purchase decision. (Digital Strike)

Top Tools and Ways to Gather Customer Feedback

The most efficient and useful techniques for gathering customer feedback include:

1. Surveys

To make sure your survey is effective, your business should focus on the key areas of interest. You should only ask questions that will help you achieve your goals.

Additionally, utilize open-ended questions that allow customers to provide detailed feedback. These questions will also allow you to create consistent rating scales and make it easier to compare responses. Avoid leading or loaded questions that might bias the results. Also, make sure to keep the survey length manageable to ensure a high response rate and prevent the customer from leaving the survey behind.

When collecting customer feedback, it is important to:

Limit questions to those that will aid in achieving your objectives.
Draft open-ended questions that are well-considered.
Establish consistent rating scales.
Avoid questions that are biased or loaded.

2. Email Forms

Gathering customer feedback through email is a simple and efficient method. Email surveys are a direct and personal way to ask for feedback from customers, as they can be done during regular customer support interactions. This approach also allows your company to take advantage of opportunities of gathering feedback in a natural way. This way, you will likely receive a higher percentage of candid responses.

3. Social media monitoring

By monitoring social media platforms, your brand can gain valuable insights from customer conversations, feedback, and complaints. Social media monitoring can provide insight into customer perceptions and help maintain a positive reputation. The results will also provide you with a better understanding of your target audience and what they expect from your products or services. Additionally, social networks like Facebook and Instagram also have in-built tools such as polls, which you can use to gather customer feedback directly.

4. User testing

Conducting usability testing can provide valuable insights into the user experience and identify areas for improvement in your products or services. However, it requires a well-planned strategy to yield the most beneficial results.

5. Website

Website feedback, which can come from end-users through various channels, such as email, social media, or reviews, provides valuable insights into the user’s experience on your website. It allows for the collection of various types of feedback, such as text, ratings, and reviews.

To gather website feedback, you can:

Use popup surveys to capture the client’s attention
Add a feedback button for design and usability feedback
Conduct quick polls for content and help article feedback
Collect feedback on abandoned shopping carts
Gather page-specific feedback

6. In-app

In-app surveys are effective for gathering feedback from app users.

To ensure that you receive high-quality feedback and provide a good user experience, consider the following tips:

Communicate the estimated length of the survey to participants.
Include a progress indicator to show how far they are in the survey.
Keep the survey as brief and concise as possible.
Pay attention to the design and layout of the survey.
Limit the number of required fields to fill out.
Avoid asking for information that you already possess.
Ensure that the survey is optimized for mobile devices.

Conclusion

In today’s digital age, gathering customer feedback is essential for the growth and success of your business. By paying attention to what customers have to say, you can make improvements to your products, services, customer satisfaction, and overall customer experience while increasing profits.

Today, customers can provide feedback through a variety of channels, so it’s easier for you. Even if a business does not actively solicit feedback, customers will inevitably share their opinions about the products and services they use.

Start with simple methods such as utilizing social media channels and collecting feedback through email or websites.

Then, as you expand your feedback collection tactics, you can utilize usability testing and social listening to have a deeper understanding of customer needs and preferences. This can ultimately help you achieve increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and overall business performance.

If you need more information about customer feedback and its importance in today’s changing markets, feel free to reach out to us.

Author

I am Louise Savoie Digital Marketer at Proweaver, a web development company specializing in Custom Web Design which helps sole proprietors and small companies increase their sales and grow their business. I am responsible in Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing. You can find us on Facebook: @webdesignproweaver and on Twitter and Instagram: @proweaver