• 70% of people research products online before making a purchase;
• 77% of people make their purchase decision based on other buyers’ reviews.

Source: business.com

Imagine how many “could be customers” might be buying from your competitors for the sole reason that they can’t find reviews on your product.

Customer feedback is the information customers provide regarding their satisfaction with a product or service, as well as their overall experience of interacting with your business. You can use this feedback to improve the quality of your services and to cater to your customers’ needs and preferences.

Why Collect Customer Feedback?

The importance of collecting feedback has been known for a long time, and it’s fueled by a number of reasons:

1. Feedback improves customers’ confidence in the brand.

Customers are more likely to believe what others say about you rather than what you say about yourself on your website or in the promotion materials.

2. Feedback keeps you alert.

You can collect feedback to be in the know of your employees’ performance. Why pay for audit when your customers are willing to share what they expected from the product and what they’ve got in the end? The only thing left for you to do is to analyze the feedback and apply the insights.

3. Feedback provides ground for content creation.

Don’t know what to write about on your brand’s social media pages or in your email marketing campaigns? Share your customers’ feedback! Customer feedback may even help you improve audience reach, as other people would start sharing the content across the web.

4. Collecting feedback makes customers feel appreciated.

It’s a great way to show customers that you do value their opinion and that you are there for them, not the other way around. Listen to your customers, take notice of what they ask for and you will be able to improve customer retention and get customers to promote your brand.

5. Customer feedback has a positive impact on your sales.

According to the research by ama.org among 27,000 customers, those who have provided feedback after making a purchase have made repeat purchases during the course of the next year, adding up to their customer lifetime value and the total number of purchases per customer.

Why Not Every Customer Leaves Feedback?

The main reason may be that you simply don’t ask for it, it’s too difficult to do, or they have nowhere to write about you.

Another reason may be that people generally don't like to leave feedback. The customer has already received the service they paid for and sees no reason to write reviews about it. However, if during the purchase process the customer faces an unusual situation and gets professional help, the chances that they will leave feedback slightly increase.

In most cases, though, customers leave feedback when things go south.

Why Are Many Feedback Messages Bad?

Generally, bad feedback falls into two categories.

1. Reasonable negative feedback. This is a typical human reaction to an unpleasant situation. Your task here is to deal with the issue the customer has faced as quickly and efficiently as possible.
2. Paid-for comments. Well, you can’t disregard the underhanded schemes your competitors may employ. The best thing you can do in this situation is to reply with something that will dispel the negative impression and show that the feedback is not truthful.

The main thing you should remember about negative feedback is the value it holds for your company’s development (that is, of course, if the feedback is true). Customers spend their time to describe you the situation and they await for the issue to be dealt with. At this stage, you can turn the tables and get a positive impression to replace the negative one.

What should you do if your customers don't leave feedback? You may be tempted to pay to someone to leave feedback for you. In reality, though, this is a dead end: fake feedback is easily recognizable and usually only leads to negativity. There is nothing wrong with asking your real customers to write a review.

How to Ask for Customer Reviews?

Remember, you need to get customer feedback regularly, not just from time to time.

There are both passive and active ways to collect customers’ reviews. The first is when a customer leaves feedback without any extra prompt from you; the second is when you need to take some effort to drive feedback.

The Passive Way to Collect Customer Feedback

A feedback form on your website. Online stores often offer feedback forms on product cards, while service websites ask for feedback with buttons or forms located on the Contact Us / About Us pages. In the latter case, forms are unlikely to get filled, unless there’s some incentive.

Having a feedback form on your website is convenient for a number of reasons:

• You demonstrate that your company is not indifferent to the customers’ opinion. It is risky, of course, if you leave the reviews unprocessed for a long time or don’t answer them at all.
• A feedback form will reduce the amount of negativity on your social network pages. Social networks can be a great way to personally connect with your customers but they can also cause great damage to your reputation. It will be better if you’re able to react quickly and moderate possible negative reviews before they become publicly available.
• Unlike hotline phone calls or paper reviews, a feedback form on the website will allow you to save and analyze all the customer feedback you collect. This will provide you with the opportunity to go over all the reviews across all touchpoints, and take the appropriate action.

But keep in mind that website visitors, who fill out such forms, mostly give negative reviews. In order to win their sympathy, offer them small bonuses and perks in exchange for a better and more friendly review.

The Active Way of Asking for Customer Feedback Through Emails

To encourage your customers to leave feedback, opr for different tricks, from an offer to get a bonus for a review to a competition for the best review. Sending an email with a request to leave a review is suitable for almost any online store.

Let’s have a glance at the most effective options.

Remind Your Customers There Is a Review Section

For example, Etsy reminds users to give client feedback on the item they’ve purchased, and offers to do so with the following email:

Offer a Bonus for a Review

Make a giveaway for the most interesting review; it will increase the number of them in general:

Offer Discounts for a Review

Offer discount coupons for consumer product reviews, as this will help you not only identify customer needs but also improve customer satisfaction.

Ask for Feedback on Your Store or Product

Send an email after a customer has completed their order. This process can be automated:

The workflow for feedback collection is triggered by an API event.

Distinguish between product reviews and service reviews. When you request a review of a product, make sure that the product has been delivered, and the customer had enough time to put it in use. When you ask for feedback on the provided service, send a request even if the customer has canceled the order.

Collect Feedback on the App as Well

You can and should ask for feedback on more than just your products. Ask customers to leave feedback on your app:

Google Analytics doesn’t hesitate to conduct client satisfaction surveys among their multi-million audience:

Collect Feedback on Social Media Networks

Give your customers an opportunity to communicate with you in a way that is more convenient for them. For example, you can send an email asking your customers to share feedback on social media networks.

The other way around will also work fine: include into your emails reviews from social networks to increase trust in your product and invite subscribers to your social media.

How to Collect Customer Feedback via Email?

Choose the form of collecting and processing reviews based on the capabilities and needs of your company.

1. Response email. The most common, but also the most difficult option, when the customer sends a review in a reply email. The main issue here is not to leave it without the answer and think over the mechanics of further actions with such reviews.
2. Consumer survey email. This can be either a form from Google Docs or form created by our platform experts at your request. In the second case, the user's response is recorded in the contact card in your account:

For more information about the survey tools you can use in your business, see our blog post on services for collecting feedback.

3. Form on the website. In this case, the customer goes to your website and leaves their review in the product card or appropriate section.

Do ask to leave a comment on a third-party resource. After TripAdvisor entered the market, hotels became interested in receiving reviews and a high rating on this platform. Do not be afraid to ask to write reviews and indicate the resource specific for your business.

How to Use the Collected Feedback

As you reach your primary objective, what you can do next is to make the reviews work for you:) Pay attention to each customer review. Negative feedback reducing the number of sales is a myth that has long since been dispelled. Talk to your customers, solve their emerging issues — keeping an open communication will help you increase the number of purchases.

• Add customer feedback to your welcome emails.

A welcome email is the first thing a new subscriber receives from you so it is important to get the customers interested from the get-go. Here’s how you can make a good impression by showcasing other customers’ reviews in an interesting format:

• Use feedback in reactivation emails.

If a subscriber stops reading your emails, clicking to the website or making purchases, you have to rekindle their interest. One way to do this would be to send them a reactivation email with included feedback by other customers or a friendly reminder to leave one on their own.

• Add other people’s reviews in the email for collecting feedback.

What better way to encourage readers than with a decent example? If you want to increase the number of reviews, show your customers that there are some reviews already posted, and it is not scary to leave it:)

Use our tips to collect feedback and evaluate your customers' loyalty index.

Calculating the NSP will be discussed next time. Stay tuned!

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