Customer Feedback Loop

A customer feedback loop is a process of gathering and analyzing customer feedback to amp up a company's products, services, or overall customer experience. It's about staying in the loop with customers and crafting a plan that's all about developing cool, new solutions that match what customers really want and need.

In the video below, Anya explains how to use customer feedback to your advantage. Check it out!

In this article, we’ll explain why a customer feedback loop is essential and how it benefits a business. We’ll also uncover forms of customer feedback and show you how to create an effective customer feedback loop.

Why is a customer feedback loop important?

First, a customer feedback loop is essential since it helps increase customer satisfaction. Collecting and analyzing feedback helps you eliminate the gaps and improve specific areas of your product or service. By responding to customer concerns, you can make the experience with your brand more pleasant.

Secondly, you can improve your product or service. Customers give you fresh eyes to see what's awesome and what needs work in your product or service. Their feedback? It's like striking gold, giving you the lowdown on what's hot and what's not with your product, service, site, or customer support. They shine a light on problems and gaps you might've missed. When you dive into that feedback, you're armed to make savvy decisions on making your product better, launching new stuff, or giving updates that hit the spot.

Thirdly, you can retain customers who perform repeat purchases. When incorporating a customer-centric approach, you demonstrate to customers that you care about their opinions, needs, preferences, and problems. By listening to your clients, you establish reasons for them to stay. If you pay attention to your gaps and resolve them, you encourage customer loyalty and returning customers.

Now that you know why a customer feedback loop is crucial, it’s time to find out the main benefits of this marketing strategy.

How does a well-structured feedback loop can benefit businesses?

With a well-thought-out feedback loop, companies can benefit in various areas. In this section, we’ll uncover the most common reasons to consider implementing this marketing approach.

• Product improvement. When you're giving your all for the company, but the results don't quite hit those business goals, there's a gap somewhere. But before or when that situation creeps up, it's time to turn to your customers for a hand. Those loyal customers? They're gold mines of insights and crucial information to improve your product. Knowing where your product or service falls short is the ticket to always aiming higher, bringing in innovations and updates that keep things top-notch.
• Lower customer churn. When you proactively respond to customers' concerns, you prevent your clients from walking out the door. If you do everything possible to meet customer requirements, you keep them sticking around instead of scouting for other options.
• Higher customer satisfaction. Gathering customer feedback is key to spotting the gaps in your product, service, or overall experience with your brand. Feedback is information that helps identify the issues and eliminate them. When you dive into those customer inquiries and tweak your product to shine brighter, that's when clients dig your brand. They stick around, keep coming back for more, and keep your business buzzing.
• Competitive advantage. Regularly snagging that customer feedback helps your company stay nimble, adapting on the fly to make your product even better based on what customers say. Changing trends and market conditions often push businesses towards change, but they aren’t always ready for this. In this scenario, you'll leap ahead of the competition, serving up what customers want in a flash.
• Customer loyalty. Ensuring constant customer engagement and interaction is the ticket to winning their loyalty. When clients see that their thoughts count, they're all in for your brand. Plus, when they notice real changes after speaking up, they're here to stay. They'll keep coming back to your company, not even thinking about checking out the competition.
• Inspiration for innovation. Customer feedback can serve not only as a tool for eliminating the gaps but also for creating space for innovation. Clients’ insights, preferences, desires, and needs can inspire you for some additional features, products, or services. These add-ons will align with customers' requirements and market demands.
• Customer-centric approach. A company incorporating a customer feedback loop demonstrates its care about customer input and is willing to improve. It helps establish a customer-focused mindset and strive towards improvement. Clients, in their turn, will appreciate such dedication with loyalty and repeat purchases.
• Preventions of bigger problems. A customer feedback loop allows your business to catch tiny issues before they snowball into big problems for your business. Customer feedback serves as a risk mitigation tool. When you manage to solve customer concerns in time, you’ll be able to avoid consequences resulting in a bad reputation, public discussions, and disqualification of you as a business.

Now that you know the advantages of a customer feedback loop, let’s review the existing customer feedback forms.

Forms of Customer Feedback

You can gather customer feedback through different forms. The choice depends on the channels and information you want to receive. In this section, we’ll uncover some of the most commonly used customer feedback forms.

• Reviews. Your business will receive valuable insights if you allow customers to leave their reviews on your website. Clients can also share their reviews on third-party sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google Reviews. These reviews will allow you to level up your product or service.
• Surveys. Surveys can be both online and offline. However, nowadays, business owners prefer to send questionnaires to email addresses or ask clients to fill them out on a brand’s site. It’s more convenient and accessible. Well-thought-out questions can do wonders for your company, identifying the problems and helping you resolve them. SendPulse empowers you to manage several channels like chatbots and email to send surveys to clients and get their feedback.
• Feedback forms. A feedback form enables you to gather opinions on your product or service. By adding such forms to your site, you can clearly understand customer experience with your brand. After receiving this data, you’ll be able to make improvements that influence the experience with your company and increase customer satisfaction.
• Social media. If you want to know what people think about your product or service, social media is your hotspot. From comments and mentions to DMs on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, that's where the buzz is.
• Customer support communication. When customers have some complications or problems with your product or service, they instantly contact customer support agents. That’s why your customer support team can become a perfect source of information. Phone calls, live chats, and emails help you collect information about your product and obtain some valuable insights. It's the fuel for making your next moves, improving, and updating like a champ.
• Focus groups. One more helpful form of customer feedback is a focus group. It’s a group interview that contains a small number of people with common traits and experiences. These people discuss specific business areas, such as a product, service, or experience. They help you figure out the strengths and weaknesses of your company.
• Chatbots. Chatbot is a multi-purpose solution that promotes your product, sells, and collects feedback. After training the bot, you can set it up to gather feedback on a specific day and time. This is very convenient since it doesn't require human intervention. With SendPulse, you can build chatbots and collect feedback through the most popular messengers and social media platforms like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Telegram. You can also add a live chat to your site to gather customer insights.
• Customer forums. There are many reliable platforms where customers share their experiences with specific brands, exchange opinions, ask and answer questions, and leave feedback to the community. These platforms can be used for sharing experiences and exploring information for further purchases. By analyzing information about your product or service, you can draw conclusions and make improvements to your business.
• Usability testing. Running a test on usability is always a good idea if you want to ensure customers feel comfortable. It allows clients to use your product and provide their feedback regarding their experiences. As a result, you can resolve the existing issues.

Now that you know the most widely used forms of feedback, let’s proceed to the next section to find out how to create an effective customer feedback loop.

How to build an effective customer feedback loop?

An effective customer feedback loop requires you to systematically gather, analyze, and use available information. We’ve identified the most essential steps to consider when creating a customer feedback loop, so let’s check them out.

1. Determine your goals. First, you need to clearly understand your intention for incorporating a customer feedback loop. You should know the goals you want to achieve and the information you want to collect. Understanding the data for attaining your key objectives is essential to reach your goals.
2. Define main touchpoints. Once you know the objectives, you’ll need to identify the key touchpoints where you can receive valuable feedback. For instance, it can be purchase, customer onboarding, product usage, etc.
3. Select the most effective channels. Choose the channels while keeping in mind your goals and touchpoints. The most important thing is to pay attention to the communication channels your target audience prefers to use for interaction. You can use various feedback forms for WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, live chat, chatbot, email, Telegram, etc.
4. Create accurate questions. Work on the development of well-thought-out questions that are clear and concise. Ensure that your survey questions are specific and correlate with your key goals. Your surveys should encourage your customers to provide actionable insights rather than to answer “Yes” or “No.”
5. Make use of innovative technology. Businesses use technology to conduct surveys, collect feedback, and analyze it. This is because it’s impossible to manage large amounts of materials manually. Enter survey tools, customer feedback software, and analytics platforms—these tech champs make collecting customer insights a breeze and crunching those numbers lightning-fast.
6. Include open-ended questions. Consider implementing open-ended questions if you want to receive qualitative feedback. Let clients share their experience with your brand, product, or service. Customers can help you identify problems and effectively resolve them by providing you with their thoughts and suggestions.
7. Use Net Promoter Score. Net Promoter Score is a one-question survey asking the likelihood of customers recommending a business to their friends and family. With this metric, you can evaluate satisfaction with your brand and identify three types of clients: promoters, passives, and detractors. This information might be useful for further marketing strategies.
8. Take measures promptly. Develop a plan of action and use specific tools to respond to your customers’ feedback quickly. You should be fast at reviewing, analyzing, and acting once you receive information from clients. Divide feedback into groups based on priority and address urgent problems first. This way, you’ll show appreciation for consumers’ contribution to your business and its success.
9. Tell customers about the positive changes. Once you consider customer feedback and solve the issues, inform clients about it. They will be pleased to find out that their opinion, thoughts, and experience is valued. Be transparent to show your gratitude for feedback and build trusting relationships with your audience.
10. Train your customer support agents. It’s necessary to provide your customer support agents with the skills, knowledge, and tools to proactively collect customer feedback. During the call, agents can obtain all the needed data to improve a product or service. Your team should be ready to respond to clients’ issues correctly.
11. Let your customer support team collect feedback. Consider implementing a closed-loop feedback system, which implies customer support reps following up with clients who have shared feedback. Doing so will show your company's commitment to finding the real solution to existing problems.
12. Reward customers for feedback. Rewarding systems are a good reason for customers to leave their feedback on your company. Encourage your existing customers to provide valuable feedback that brings changes to your business. You should consider the incentives as rewards that might interest your audience.
13. Document customer feedback. Documenting all the valuable insights is necessary for all your company’s teams. Spread that information across all departments, and you'll have everyone in your company marching to the same beat, all geared up to hit those business goals together.

Congrats, now you know what a customer feedback loop is and why it’s a game-changer. Hope that our step-by-step guide on building an effective customer feedback loop for your business will come in handy. When it's time to automate that feedback collection, count on SendPulse, with its chatbots and bulk email service, to be your ace in the hole.

References:

1. This article defines the term and unveils why it’s important.
2. In this article, you’ll find how a customer feedback loop works.

Last Updated: 08.02.2024