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Your greatest marketing asset

There’s nothing that compares to good old word-of-mouth. When it comes to marketing your business, what customers say about you counts more than any piece of copy you could write or marketing dollar you could spend. Prospective customers care less about what you have to say than they do what your existing and past customers have to say. But getting quality feedback isn’t only about marketing, it’s about taking the temperature of your customers’ experience and seeing where you’re winning, and where you need to focus more work.

Key takeaways:

• Creating the plan
• Branding your campaign
• How to ask for feedback
• How to use that feedback
• How to communicate with your customers

What’s your goal?

You must have a goal for your feedback campaign, or you’ll quickly fall down a rabbit hole, trying to fix every little thing until you’re overwhelmed and, ultimately, give up. Before you are ready to collect feedback, know what you hope to achieve. This will allow you to focus on one specific aspect and put all your energy into it so you can create the best possible result and service. Some feedback may uncover issues that need attention, while other comments may be trivial.

Make it your own

If you use email to gather feedback, make sure it’s branded, so your customers know where the communication came from. You want them to recognize the material, and you want them to know you’re addressing their concerns and improve your product based on their feedback. If people know your brand, they’re more likely to respond to a feedback survey.

Question them

Decide which questions you think are most important to ask in order to improve your business and offerings. Don’t lead your customers to specific answers but create a survey that allows them to answer how they truly feel. Give them options if it’s multiple-choice, and don’t make any specific answer options seem more important than others. If it’s a list of possible answers, list them alphabetically rather than ranked by importance.

Communication is key

We’ve talked about asking customers for feedback, but now that you have it, then you have to act on it. It’s not enough to collect the information and file it away. Make it actionable. Pick out points in the feedback that discuss how systems can be improved and assign an employee or team to get to work on it. Create a plan of action that you can follow through to the end to resolve issues or to focus more attention and push on what they highlighted as a great element of your product or service.

You must have internal communication. It is just as important as external communication. Let the customer know how valued their feedback was and share with them the plan you created based on their feedback. It will make them feel valued, and if it was a customer that has second thoughts about your business, it could pull them back into the fold because you’re addressing a problem they pointed out.

What if feedback isn’t given?

Monitor! There are different ways you can monitor the internet for mentions of your brand so you can see what people are saying. By using different services like Google Alerts, you can find specific mentions of your brand where you can gather feedback and work on improving your business.

Mentions could happen on websites or social media, and these mentions are likely to be super honest and to the point. Make sure you have thick skin, because customers may not hold back if they’re talking to other customers, but the raw information can really shine a light on what’s not working with your company, and what you need to work on immediately.

Implement

Once you have all of your information and you’ve created a plan to correct the issues, now it’s time to implement the changes. Just as you had a plan to work through the information and create a solution, you may have to create a plan to implement the solution.

Creating a feedback campaign may take some time, but in the end, it’s a surefire way to foster better customer experiences and create a product and brand that people enjoy spending time and money on. If you need more information on how to keep your customers and your star employees happy, visit our blog for more great tips and advice.