Four ways to gather feedback from customers

Companies are aware of the importance of customer’s research. They invest a big amount of resources on investigating every aspect of both potential and real customers. The information extracted from the studies is useful to go ahead tastes and tendencies of the market, allowing brands to give what exactly what customers want in terms of experience and product. The more they know about customers the more they can adapt strategies to them.

Although, getting customers information may be a difficult task sometimes. There are many ways and techniques to get customers opinion, however it does not mean their testimonies are honest. Customers are influenced by several factors when they are asked about a product or a service, therefore their real opinion about it might be altered for the environment. Selecting the best techniques and targeting the appropriate customers Is crucial for a precise conclusion of customers opinion.

As mentioned before, there are several ways of getting customers feedback. Companies use normally the straight contact with them the most trustable way, although observation also reveals relevant information.

 

Online surveys

With this method, the company contact customers directly through prepared questions about a topic they find interesting. The people surveyed must answer honestly to the questions, in order to have a good study of the situation. The questions should be easy to answer and not too personal. Online surveys can be both large or short depending on the companies objective and the public. Long surveys require longer time and a bigger commitment from customers. Therefore occasionally, these kinds of surveys are rewarded somehow. In exchange for a survey, customers might get economical rewards or free trails, vouchers to promote participation. Site that provide business articles often use such techniques. On the other hand, short online surveys are quicker to answer and considered a short process to find out precise information about the product or the brand experience.

 

Feedback boxes

Implement a structured process to receive customer’s information about the whole shopping experience. Customers are always thinking about how to improve some aspects of their experience, so feedback boxes are the best way to get open opinions from customers about something going wrong in the process or product. In this case, questions are not pre-established so the customer has to adapt their answers but the opposite, they can answer with their owns words a whole matter. The purpose of this tool is to make easier for the customer to communicate with the company about an issue or a worry.

 

Reach out directly

When using online way of investigating about customers, non-verbal communicate is dismissed. People surveyed have to reactions verbal and non-verbal, the one that the body languages express. Sometimes, nonverbal communication is considered more trustful as it comes from the subconscious revealing an honest answer. Contrary to the online process, through this method professional are able to recognise more information form a physical reaction.

 

Analyse user activity

Consists of getting the information from the observation of the data companies manage, instead of the straight communication with customers. Just by observing their activities some information could be revealed. The advantage of this method is the reliability there is not subjective result just the data. One of the most common techniques to gather data about user activity is utilising web analytics platforms, any digital and link building agency will benefit from monitoring user activity through these online platforms. Plus, they are usually free of charge,

 

In conclusion, even though there are many ways of getting customers information is still a difficult task. Sometimes a customer would like to communicate something about their experience but is not easy for them to express their feelings or they feel intimidated. They are not consciously lying or hiding information but they are not able to express more from a situation, in most of the chases.