Customer Feedback Channels You Should Be Using

Like most service providers, apartment sharing marketplace, #Airbnb asks for customers’ feedback after their stay, but never insists upon it, thereby giving them the freedom to decide whether they want to share their experience or not.

That’s an unobtrusive, polite way of getting customers to check all the boxes, without irritating them. We wouldn’t be surprised if this policy may alone have contributed to the marketplace’s increased bookings by 25%, just through their referral program, but it could certainly be one of the several factors.

Likewise, in the hospitality sector again, #Hilton Hotels appears to have another good feedback-taking policy. It’s called the Hilton Surveying Program. Only it’s not a perfunctory kind of a survey that every service provider takes from every customer. It’s a serious survey from which live data is updated every night. Their response rate to the #Hilton Hotel survey is now 30% and the abandonment rate has fallen by 6% in a year.

A third example is that of #Uber, an on-demand cab hailing service that caters to two constituencies — the drivers and the passengers — and necessarily has to collect feedback from both. The passengers are requested to rate the service after every ride, and the drivers are also asked to rate the passengers.

The fourth example is that of #Netflix, the video streaming service. #Netflix has an intelligent information gathering system based on Big Data analysis. Based on what a customer watched in the past, it makes recommendations on what movies/shows they may like watching.

The fifth and final example is that of mobile wallet #Paytm that recently threw out a whopping 85,000 sellers from the #Paytm mall after reviewing customer feedback.

The lesson from all these companies is simple — If you are not taking feedback from your customers, you may seriously be missing out on the opportunity of knowing what they need and demand from your service, which could be a direct loss of sales to your company.

For an eCommerce platform in particular, where there is no direct dealing with the customer, taking feedback on the customer’s experience could be the most important marketing and sales strategy.

“Market research, CX management, potential customer creation, user/customer support and permission marketing are only some benefits of customer feedback platform,” says one expert.

Listen to Your Customer

Luxury shoe brand #Zappos gets 75% of its business from repeat clientele and only 43% represent new customers, who come through word of mouth. #Zappos’ has a 24/7 support channel that maintains the brands hold over its loyal, old customer base. The shoe brand takes 5,000 phone calls a month.

Sift and Search Through Your Archives of Customer Support Requests

This is a treasure trove of insights that you may not be sifting through. Study and figure out their pain points with your current product line. If you work on those ideas to tweak your products, you will always stay at the top of your game.

Collecting Product Feedback

#Apple blows up about $1 billion per year on Apple stores, despite a strong online presence. The ace brand uses NPS surveys to improve a shopper’s experience of its stores — both online and offline. At several of their retail stores, consumer feedback on their products gets flashed on the LED displays for the store staff to review and draw their lessons from, reports Forbes.

Use Focus Groups Discussions

Use Google+ circles or #Facebook Live for a short Q&A session to delve deeper into the mindset of your regular customer. These are wonderful tools to get people engaged with your brand. If you can, give due credit for the suggestions offered and thank them too!

Surveys and Polls

If you have recently grabbed a bite at #Taco Bell, you would have had to fill out a short form at the end of your dining experience. Their survey instrument is short and sweet, and Taco Bell makes accurate note of the feedback and incentivizes its staff for collecting it from the customer. Furthermore, the customer survey results are printed out on every invoice, and filling out the form entitles the customers to a Sweepstakes.

Solicit a Guru’s Advice

#Elevator a jewelry retailer in Toronto has a unique approach to customer feedback. Whenever new merchandise arrives at the store, owner Niko Downie unboxes it in front of all his staff members in order to study their reaction to the new product. That’s not all. The reveal is followed by role plays and action brainstorming sessions, where they discuss every tiny aspect of the new item to gain thorough understanding of their own wares before selling it to the customer.

Try a Different Route

#Fracture, a Florida-based photo print company does nothing the traditional way. Even its service offerings are funky and contemporary and the company is able to do that because it re-invents its service every time a customer demands it, and tailors specific solutions for each customer — framed photographs, non-framed no-fuss lithographs — you name it, they have it.

Word-of-Mouth

Some brands not just the feedback but images of happy customer into their campaigns to have them go viral. #Starbucks, #Coca-Cola, #Adidas, #Maggi have often used user-generated campaigns to build sales on word-of-mouth.

Go Social

Go where your customers are. #Southwest Airlines uses social media to quickly respond to customers’ travel concerns. They have a dedicated handle — “Listening Center” moderated by a staff of 31 that quickly responds to thousands of tweets per day.

To Sum it…

Great companies don’t talk. They listen. And what they learn they put it back into their brands and service.