What motivates website visitors to share feedback?
By Deborah Arputham (originally for Zarget blogs)
Your website tells visitors your business story, educates them on the products/services, funnels them to the point of interest and finally converts them into a customer — The only reason a website even exists, is for its visitors. That’s why visitor feedback is cardinal!
Ideally, gathering feedback should be as easy as asking them a question and getting an answer. But that’s not true because not everybody leaves feedback or is willing to leave feedback.
Feedback motivations
This blog will scratch the surface of what makes website visitors talk to you, give their suggestion/opinion, and engage with you.
It’s important to interpret the reasons (the thoughts, emotions, theories, and judgments) behind why visitors give, refuse or ignore feedback. This understanding will help establish an emotional connection with the visitors and then influence their actions favorably. And that’s not so easy because your visitors/customers do not consciously conceive the reasons. Most of it happens subconsciously.
Remember, as much as I would like to direct another Disney’s ‘Inside Out’ inspired by my customer’s mind (which I might someday); this blog isn’t that. Like I told you, it only scratches the surface and gets you thinking. :)
So, here goes my list of feedback motivations…
Product’s relevance
When your customer is genuinely interested/in need of your content/product/offering, he is more likely to show interest by asking questions or clarifying concerns and doubts. The key here is targeting. When you target the right audience and present your offering relevantly, you will end up with visitors who show interest and share feedback.
Brand Perception
A brand is but a 100 perceptions through which your customer connects with you. What they feel about you makes a big difference in whether they want to give you feedback or not. It’s everything from the colors you choose to the reasons you are in the news.
What do they think about you — do they believe you rip them off, sell cheap products, and never deliver on your promises OR do they feel that you innovate great products, offer great support, and make customers a priority.
People tend to respond when they feel confident about you — they want to appreciate, help you improve, or just be a part of what you do.
Assurance of being heard
People like to talk when you listen — don’t you, too? Quick responses, constant communication, and accepting honest feedback make them feel they are being heard and valued.
Acknowledge the feedback with a response. If you’ve made some changes based on the feedback, let them know that you agreed with them and incorporated their suggestions in your business. It will leave you in their good books and encourage them to give you more valuable feedback.
Ease of access
It’s vital that they can reach out to you at that very moment. That’s why it’s important to give visitors multiple touch points; it motivates their feedback. It makes it easy for them to tell you things. In addition to your personalized website feedback sessions and polls, you should also have prominent social media buttons, contact details and the similar to encourage communication. Live chat is a favorite too.
Angry clients talk too!
Customers speak when they are annoyed. A happy customer speaks in private, while the unhappy ones take it to social media or a different public space to shame you. Negative feedback like many believe is not the end of the story. With thoughtful and timely responses, it is possible to turn the story around.
You remember what happened when United broke Dave Caroll’s guitar? Well, that’s a perfect example of what an unhappy customer can do.
For those who don’t know: United Airlines broke Dave’s Taylor guitar during a trip on their airline in 2008. When he complained, they ignored him. And then Dave went viral over the internet with this hilarious song telling his story. The airline’s stock was said to have gone down by a 10% during that time. He was offered a huge sum of money to take the video down, but he chose to continue to hate them and become famous :).
United Broke My Guitar — by Dave ( Possibly the world’s most famous ‘annoyed customer’)
Angry customers are not as bad as the ones that are indifferent to your business. If you can fix their complaints and turn it around quickly, you can always ask them to replace their negative comment or review with a positive one.
Listen carefully, empathize actively, apologize sincerely.
A gentle nudge
Almost always people feel things like excitement, anger, anxiety et cetera when they are on your website. But it might not cross their mind to share it with you. Polls and feedback sessions will help you gently nudge them to share their opinions and feelings.
By asking polite and specific questions you not only help them open up to you, but you can also extract feedback on specific areas that you want to improve — website redesign, content, pricing, product or anything similar.
The crux:
Establishing emotional connections with your visitors is a science — and a strategy! The key is to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. After all, in some way or the other we all play the role of a consumer or a customer in our everyday life. So think about how you respond to business, what makes you give feedback, why you are indifferent to a particular business, the emotions that drive you to provide feedback. The answers to these questions will help you delve into an understanding of what drives your customers to give feedback. You can then use it to stimulate those motivations on your website to get your visitors/customers to talk.
About Zarget:
Zarget is a conversion rate optimization software that includes — Heatmaps, A/B testing, Funnel Analysis, Polls and Feedback, and Form Analytics.
