by Nisha Sharma
For every customer who makes a complaint, there are twenty more who don’t. What this means, is that most customers won’t bother to provide feedback regarding their experiences. Instead, they quietly decide that they’ll never do business with that company again.
Even more daunting, losing the customer itself is not the only drawback. An unsatisfied customer can potentially share their negative experience with up to twenty family members, friends, and peers.
How many of you think that is a steep price to pay for lack of feedback?
To prevent this marketing catastrophe, companies are seeking strategies to engage customers in providing feedback about their experiences. Let’s a take a look at some ideas.
Social Media Monitoring
Social media has taken hold of the business world, in terms of advertising, brand awareness, networking, and more. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest are just a few social media outlets that provide a priceless resource for customer feedback. Using the right publishing tools, you can monitor likes, target specific audiences and observe the social presence of competitors. With social media, it is critical to address a complaint right away not only to resolve and appease the customer, but so that followers can see for themselves that the issue was handled to the company’s best ability (and in a timely manner).
Measuring Service Performance
After a customer’s issue or concern has been resolved, a survey can be sent via email to prompt the customer to provide feedback regarding their experience. The survey determines if the resolution to the problem was what the customer expected. It should be just a few simple questions with a rating system on a scale of 1 to 5. This way the customer doesn’t have to spend too much time racking their brain, but still arm the company with enough knowledge to know how well they did in providing a resolution.
Providing Live Support
Customers love e-commerce websites that offer live chat. What better way to be helped than by a staff member available with the click of a button? Live chat addresses many issues, such as shipping policies, trouble finding availability for an item, and a number of other questions customers have. Chat support is tracked so that companies can use the conversations to learn common patterns of questions and ultimately gain a better understanding of their challenges when navigating the website. Don’t forget that the quality of your support on live chat matters just as much and that you want to make sure you fulfilled your customer’s expectations.
Order Confirmation Feedback
A great tool to use for feedback is prompting the customer to fill out a short survey after completing an order. Just like when a survey is prompted after a complaint ticket, it should be short and to the point. This survey can measure the customer’s shopping experience. Were they happy with the options? Did they find what they were looking for? How about a text box to add anything we missed? This survey will provide invaluable knowledge and insight into the user-friendliness and navigating capability of your website.
Abandoning the Cart
We’ve all seen this – the customer reaches their shopping cart but for some reason the purchase does not go through. It’s important to to find out why – was the process too lengthy? Was there an unexpected cost added that gave them doubt? Prompt the customer to explain in a text bubble that shows up after abandonment. If you don’t like the idea of a text box, try a short multiple choice survey of 1-2 questions. If the response is reasonable, often times you’ll have an opportunity to correct the issue. Positive and negative feedback has always been an integral part of business strategy. Customers want to know that their voice is heard. More importantly, their feedback provides insight into the the business’s service, product value, and commitment for satisfaction. The more you listen, the more your business will grow.
How are you going to collect feedback?