Gather Customer Feedback To Improve Digital Experience
Customer feedback measures your customer satisfaction and gives you all the ammunition you need to optimize the customer experience. Here’s how to get started.
In 2015, McDonalds announced that they would no longer serve chickens raised on antibiotics or cows treated with artificial growth hormones. A strategic decision, this move was based on the growing preference among customers for healthier, more natural options.
For the fast-food behemoth, the way forward was clear; they would have to adapt and create an experience “customers can feel good about”. They modified their branding to the color of healthy green and shortly afterwards, reported their first strong quarter in two years.
McDonald's listened to their customers’ feedback and acted accordingly; they used it as ammunition to improve their customer experience.
The Missing Link Between Customer Experience and Customer Satisfaction
Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than those that are not. This is because they make sure that their customer experience always focuses on customer satisfaction, and the quality of their customer service.
This means making sure that your customers are happy about their product, and that your support teams listen to, and take into consideration what their customers tell them. This is for your benefit after all. Bad experiences are just bad for business. They increase churn rates, affect the brand image and lower customer retention. But when people have positive experiences, they are 3.5x more likely to purchase from that same brand again.
It is important to understand why customers feel a certain way about your product. This is how you understand how your customer experience fares in terms of customer satisfaction. Whether they are happy or unhappy, that information is a valuable way to improve. In this sense, customer feedback gives you an insight into how you can improve your overall experience.
How To Measure It Using Customer Feedback Tools
In physical stores, behavioral cues tell us what our customers are feeling; they can make faces, make comments or more directly ‘ask for the manager!’. On digital platforms, such as an e-commerce or a SaaS, it becomes much more difficult; there is a gap between the subjective customer experience, and the information your team receives on the other end.
Customer feedback tools, like the one provided by Asayer, allow your online visitors to leave comments and ratings about their subjective experience. Importantly, they provide your team with invaluable information.
- Marketing: It gives you a look into the people behind the conversions; how they use the platform and what they think of it;
- Developers: It gives you insight into the quality of your platform, any issues customers could be facing; any element that may not be working or broken;
- Product Managers: It tells you what features your customers don’t like and the new ones they wish they could see.
In order to be accurate, a good tool needs three things: to be based on emotion; to be un-intrusive; and to be put into the context of that particular users’ experience.
1. Emotional rating
Star based ratings are problematic because psychologically, human beings tend to rate in extremes. They are either all in, or all out. Instead, what customers feel when they experience something good or bad, is emotion.
According to a Forrester report, emotional responses are tightly linked to conversions, how much a customer will spend, retention and brand love. Moreover, after a positive emotion, customers are 15 times more likely to advocate for a company. That is why a tool that uses an emotional ranking, like the one provided by Asayer, will always be superior to a star-based ranking. Stop using out-dating rating systems and ask your customers how they feel.
2. Non-intrusive
How many times have you been interrupted, mid-scroll, by a giant pop-up in the middle of your screen begging for a survey? In my case I have never, even once, filled out one of these forms unless it was to give a particularly saucy complaint.
Intrusive feedback tools are annoying and interrupt users while they are on your page. Plus, with the abundance of pop-up blockers that exist on the market, your users may not even see them. When using this approach, you run the risk of receiving false negative responses simply because a user is frustrated that you keep asking for his feedback.
Even if you receive less in quantity, it is better to prioritize feedback of quality that engaged customers volunteer for themselves. Instead of pop-ups, use a feedback tool that is neatly tucked that can be pulled out anytime a user wants to leave a feedback. That way, it won’t interrupt the customers’ session.
3. Context
Feedback is useless if you don’t have the context behind it.
You need to understand why a customer left a good or bad review, they won’t necessarily report that to you.
Session replay tools let you research through you users sessions to find those that left a feedback. You can then review the session replay of that customers to understand the specific reasons behind their feedback. Did they encounter a bug? Was the page loading too slow? Did they like a particular feature? Did they complete a purchase or subscription?
Paired with the session replay, customer feedback that revolves around the emotional rating of your customers becomes a powerful tool to lead your product into success.
To resume
Asking your customers for feedback is necessary. They are the ones that experience your product so they are your best way to assess what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, and what you could do better. Get yourself a good tool that will hear the Voice of your Customers and let that guide your product offering to guarantee success.
