How Not to Gain Customer Feedback

• Tweet

• Tweet

Gaining feedback from your customers is one of the easiest ways in small business marketing to ensure you are meeting their needs. It also helps you strengthen and deepen your customer relationships.

However the way you go about gaining the feedback is one of the most important elements. Recently I had to call a company about a problem I had and they were very helpful. A week later I received a phone call and when I answered, I was listening to a recorded voice saying this call was to gain your feedback on the service you recently received. Press 1 if the issue was about billing, Press 2 if the issue was technical, Press 3….I hung up after that.

Whilst technology is great and can help a business grow, the wrong use of it can harm the customer relationship. Even though I had a good customer experience when the problem was being resolved, I certainly did not want to press numbers on my phone to record my feedback. The company also missed an opportunity to gain more quality information.

Marketing Tips to Gain Customer Feedback:

• If you sell a product ask for permission to contact them to gain feedback and opinions of their experience with the product. If you sell online just add a box for them to tick when you are getting their information.
• Once you have delivered a service again ask for permission to contact them at a later date.
• If you can find out how they would like to provide the feedback eg. speaking with you in person, via the phone etc
• If you want to use technology there are now widgets that you can put on your website to help you gain feedback.
• Have a section called Feedback in your customer section of your website, so your customers can feel free to write their thoughts
• Send your customers an email which links to an online survey to give them the option to provide the feedback anonymously if they wish.

Once you have gained and acted on the feedback, it is a good idea to let the customers know as this shows you are listening and more importantly responding to what is important to them.