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There’s no better and more reliable way to validate the viability of your product or service than to seek customer feedback. About 52% of people around the globe agree with that!
It’s how brands measure the level of satisfaction their customers have had with their products or services. Moreover, they get an insight on how engaged their front-line agents are, or how adept they’re in handling customer enquiries and feedback.
As per this report by Deloitte, customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than product-centric companies. This means that focusing on client needs as the first pillar can help companies cater to them in a more direct and personalised way.
Let’s dive deep into what happens when you start seeking customer feedback as a non-negotiable regime for your business.
Helps you identify the loose ends in your offering
You may be an expert in your industry, but in the end, if your business isn’t able to serve your ideal customer, it won’t take you anywhere!
By taking customer feedback into account, you understand the flaws in your product strategy and what should be done to make the customer experience better.
You understand where you need to allocate your money, time and resources to get better returns. For instance, should your main concern be improvising your offering to solve your customers’ problem or should you be focusing on marketing to get bigger exposure?
Makes the customers feel valued
It’s a natural tendency for humans to feel important when they’re put in the spotlight and paid attention to!
As you involve your customers in shaping your business, they get attached to your company. You give your customers the impression that your main purpose is to solve their issues and meet their needs, not to make money.
And this helps you create stronger relations with them and makes them your brand advocates who would be willing to spread positive word-of-mouth for you.
Now, isn’t it the best way to do business?
Negative feedback offers an opportunity to grow
While satisfied customers are likely to stick to your brand for a long time, unhappy customers could be the game-changers for your business!
These are the kind of customers who help you figure out your weak areas and what you should be improving on.
When a customer expresses their disappointment, you should be quick to do the damage-control. Respond quickly and offer them a solution. Consider it as the ideal opportunity to reclaim a client and even strengthen his devotion.
Displays social proof
Did you know, about 92% of global consumers read testimonials and reviews before making a purchase?
And why not! A positive feedback that’s being displayed on your website or social media shows a potential customer that someone was pleased enough with your service or product to take the time out of their busy day to compliment it.
Moreover, anyone would be skeptical to buy from a new business. Reviews and testimonials act as proof of your credibility and reliability as a business.
Helps you validate your buyer’s journey
The more you collect feedback from your customers and interact with them, the more you learn about their choices and preferences. You understand what makes them buy a product and what repels them!
This information can help you take better decisions in your business and build a rock-solid relationship with your customers.
Case study - Neev Magazine
While positive feedback helps you thrive in your business, it’s the negative feedback that helps to tweak your idea into something that has mass appeal.
When seeking feedback, always speak to the people who did not convert. It could be someone who sought out a service from you, but did not go ahead. Or it could be someone who took a demo of your product and did not buy it.
Ask them, what they were looking for and what was missing in your offering. You might still have to sift through that feedback to see what aligns with your vision. And if something clicks, it’s what decides the trajectory of your business.
At Neev Magazine (my 1st startup), I would personally speak to every single free trial signup and document their experiences.
Keeping child privacy in mind, we had two tiers of access for the online magazine - one for the parents (with access to payment info) and one for their children. We thought it was a great feature to prevent accidental purchases!
But when I spoke to a mother, she mentioned that it was not offering any value to her and in fact, complicated the login process. Her kids anyway had access to other sites which had their credit card information stored.
We evaluated this feedback and realised that it was hindering other people as well from using our product, even after purchase.
So, the feature that we introduced thinking that it would solve a specific problem of our customers, wasn’t helping them in any way at all!
And at the end, we did away with the feature to improve the usability of our product.
Final thoughts
To consistently grow in revenue and hone your product or service to match the needs of your market, you'll need to build techniques for gathering feedback. Without it, your small business may slip behind and fail to stand out in its area.
There are a variety of tools for your small business, ranging from surveys to social media that allow you to easily collect feedback data for analysis and adjust what you collect as needed.
Do you seek customer feedback as a business owner? Comment and share what works the best for you!
If you liked this post and would like more tips on other tools, then read more articles like this here or you can listen to the podcast.
Want to brainstorm a marketing strategy to grow your business? Book a free consultation with me here.
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