“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
(Steve Jobs)
If you strategize your future plans and goals based on what your customers need and demand from you then your business is surely on the track to exponential growth!! Feedback plays a two-way role in the business where publicizing the customers’ feedback builds authenticity and reliability, and using such feedback in the product development process fulfills the demands of the loyal customers simultaneously.
Today, we will discuss why customer feedback is so crucial for business growth and how it can influence the reputation management of your organization by stating 5 most valid arguments in this blog:-
1. Optimize product and services
2. Measuring consumer satisfaction
3. Insights for a better customer experience
4. Help to improve customer retention
5. Running consumer-driven decisions
Let us first explore the detailed understanding of FEEDBACK.
WHAT IS FEEDBACK?
Feedback is small and precise information that comes directly from the customer about the experience of the product or service in terms of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
We can also understand feedback as the information generated by consumers or buyers of a certain brand. This information comes in many formats and from various channels. Some of the common sources of feedback are:-
1. SURVEYS
The survey is a measure of opinions or the experiences of groups of people about some generic topic. Since the survey is created for a particular group, it contains such information that targets a particular kind of audience only like- Psychological experiment survey, Environment pollution check survey, etc.
2. QUESTIONNAIRES
Here, the information is in the form of sets of questions in the printed or written form. They are formed in such a way that the questions are predefined, charged with answers, and aimed for a particular purpose.
3. EMAILS OR LETTERS
Emails are also sent to the people in the format of questions to ask regarding a particular topic. These emails are also automated so that if the receiver taps on a particular option like- YES or NO, then they are sent to the authority and it immediately moves forward in the process whether continuing or not.
4. PHONE CALLS AND CALL CENTER DATA
This is such a system where the organization makes phone calls to the customers and collects the data from them about their experience with the product. It requires a lot of input like calling systems and then data collecting systems. This data is then used by the companies to build future strategies to grow their organization.
5. RATINGS AND REVIEWS
This is the latest form of giving and receiving feedback from the customers. When the customer uses the product and gives feedback about his/her experience on review platforms like Google, Tripadvisor, Makemytrip, Dine out, etc. which are some of the biggest platforms, then such feedback is called reviews and ratings. They are considered the most important form of feedback because of 3 main reasons:-
- Contain relevant insights of a brand, product, and services.
- Consumers write freely about their preferences, aversion, and expectations.
- They elevate the sales of the brand. This is because around 77% of the customers make their purchasing decision influenced by product reviews.
WHY FEEDBACK IS MARKED WITH SUCH A GREAT IMPORTANCE?
Customer feedback is the important driving force for the decision-makers as well as managers. This is because it forms the ground to understand the needs of the service receiver and analyze what they expect for. It also forms a big decision-making foundation for new customers who are willing to get a new product from an organization but have no valid authentication to buy from that particular brand.
They act as an actionable market for the organization and its managers because it gives a brief on the insights that can help to improve the customer experience and brand performance. Hence, they must be given special importance so that the organization can fulfill two desires simultaneously- first, act on the feedback and satisfy the customers by including the suggestions in the product development. Second, increasing the feedback content to authenticate the value of the brand.
HOW CUSTOMER FEEDBACK CAN ELEVATE THE BUSINESS?
1. OPTIMIZE PRODUCT AND SERVICES
The product must be designed according to the needs of the customer. The product must satisfy the requirement of the user. So for this, the producer or the organization has to listen to the customer’s needs. Once the requirements are clearly defined, the organization can create a product that fulfills the desire of the consumer.
Once the product is optimized according to the customer, it will pick up the scale because it will contain all the segments that are in demand by the user of the product. Since the product is made highly customer-centric, it will automatically drive more sales from the potential customers because of its high usability and accessibility.
2. MEASURE CONSUMER SATISFACTION
Measuring the performance of the product is also an essential task because it keeps the organization informed about how much change is required in the product to make it the best fit for the customer. The growth of the product sale must be regularly monitored in terms of customer satisfaction and expectations. This can be monitored in many different ways but the major one is Reviews and Ratings.
Reviews and Ratings are the real-time feedback of the customers that are the expression of the experience of the customer. Hence they must be regularly checked to measure the growth of the business. They present the real picture of the product as the reviews discuss the genuine experience of the customers. They can also be generated through email marketing and messaging the customers to request them to give reviews on various review platforms. Rannkly does have one such tool to generate reviews through which users can ask the customers to give them reviews on the links sent along with email or SMS.
3. INSIGHTS FOR A BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Once the organization receives genuine feedback from the customers, users can modify the product in the most suitable way and improve the customer experience to the next level. This will help the brand to cross-sell and up-selling the products. Though it will raise some questions like- what do they want? How do they feel about the product? This will help the organization to build better competition in the market with other organizations.
4. HELP TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER RETENTION
Making the customer buy your product is not a big task but to make the customer keep buying the products from the organization, again and again, is the major one. There should be complete awareness of the product and its growth. This is because an unsatisfied customer creates a better offer for the competitor. So an unhappy customer must also be heard and its problem must be solved with the right solution in that particular situation only.
5. RUNNING CONSUMER-DRIVEN DECISIONS
An organization must always work according to the needs of the customer. Every product that has been created must satisfy the customer otherwise it is of no use completely. Whatever fulfills the needs of the customer must be taken into consideration and valued before any other decision because a consumer of the product knows more about the product than the producer also.
These 5 points have described the need for customer feedback as the foundational and crucial one. So, do you find customer feedback as an important aspect for businesses to grow? Comment down your views in the comment box.
If you want to learn how can customer engagement be increased on the website, then visit this blog to get a complete understanding:-https://blog.rannkly.com/how-customer-engagement-improves-your-b2b-commerce
For more blogs visit-rannkly.com