How to replace face-to-face feedback in the age of social distancing

The COVID-19 outbreak is rapidly changing the way people work. This makes it even more important to understand customer needs and priorities, as they might be pivoting or changing their business models to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances.

Tried and tested methods like face-to-face feedback sessions won’t be possible for a while due to social distancing, however, there are a few things you can do to maintain or even improve the level of incoming customer insights:

1. Move existing sessions to video conferencing

Nothing beats talking to a customer face-to-face, but being on a video conference is a close second. The conversation is still real-time which gives you the ability to react to the answers and probe when needed.

However, make sure you leave extra time for potential technical issues. Even if you take all the precautions necessary, you never know if the WIFI will work for your respondent, if they need extra time to install your video conferencing platform or whether or not their headphones will connect.

2. Launch more feedback surveys

Surveys are still a great low-cost way to gather feedback from lots of customers at the same time, which can provide a more accurate sample to draw decisions from. Surveys can also be filled in whenever it suits the respondent, which increases the likelihood of responses in these busy times. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Opt for an on-site survey instead of email, as the response rates tend to be much higher.
• Limit the length of the survey. Keep the goal in mind and remove unnecessary questions.
• If you opt for email-based surveys, make sure your subject line is concise and topical, as this is the first barrier to a response.

3. Analyse your support tickets

As great as collecting feedback from video conferences and surveys might be, getting enough responses may still prove difficult as customers limit their time to focus on mission-critical activities.

However, you are already sitting on a goldmine of customer feedback which requires no additional action from your customers, your support tickets. You’d be surprised at how much contextual information can be found by properly analysing this data, it can help you identify issues and trends such as:

• How people are using your product or service
• The most important issues with certain features or releases
• Why users are cancelling their accounts

Customer feedback analytics platforms integrate with your support system in order to transform your support tickets into actionable insights. Prodsight is one of these platforms, try it for yourself with a 7-day free trial, with full access to all our features.