by: Olivia Roehm

Acting on Customer Feedback = More

I’m a consumer and a customer of a lot of businesses. I’ve realized I value a business’ goals to review, understand, interact with, and act on customer feedback more than anything else. Why? Because when I can see that a business is listening and learning from the audience they want to sell to, I know they are providing value to me.You’re a C-Suite executive, marketer, digital manager, business owner; advertising along just isn’t going to cut it in 2020, let alone the pandemic of 2020. You need to implement a process of understanding customer feedback to make future marketing decisions easier.

Reviewing Customer feedback     

• Points out aspects that need improvement·
• Helps customers know they are important·
• Gives you the opportunity to turn the bad experience into a good one·
• Provides more data for all your teams – on product, on service, on customer satisfaction, on marketing messages…

I talk a lot about the idea of “closing the loop” in marketing. It’s the concept that there are steps to take after a marketing campaign is done to learn and implement new knowledge in the next campaign – a cycle! A key ingredient is clearly customer feedback. Acting on customer feedback can bring you more revenue. As a marketer, I know this idea can be overwhelming sometimes; where do you look and how do you find the right feedback, and then how do you act on the feedback?

Here’s a quick guide to customer feedback:

Collecting the Feedback

1.    Surveys

Use short form surveys to improve your understanding of the customer experience and brand perception. Be careful not to make the surveys too long, as you will need very committed buyers to engage with a longer survey.

2.    Transactional Emails

Once someone has purchased, set up automated emails to request a survey response and/or a review on their favorite site. Reviews on as many channels as possible is helpful, so give them multiple links to be able to review you where they want to, whether that be Google, Facebook, your website, etc.

3.    Reviews

Look through your reviews – look at your website, Google, Facebook, Amazon store, wherever someone can leave a review. Group them by satisfied and unsatisfied; start understanding what the general sentiment is and identify patterns of success or challenges.

4.    Social Media Engagement

Ask your social team about what messages or comments they’re getting. Oftentimes you’ll find that customers will share insights about your product right on the social media post.

5.    Social Listening

There may be discussions about your brand that you don’t know about. Social listening – the process of scraping internet activity for mentions of your product and brand – can bring in feedback that you otherwise may never know! As your business grows, it is important to start understanding what customers are not saying to your face.

What to do with the feedback:

1.    Customer focused brainstorms

Use it! This is your opportunity to grab your leadership team and your marketing teams and brainstorm why customers are having their experiences, and how you can improve upon them across many departments.

2.    Post on social media

start developing social media content to address the key elements that have been identified through the customer feedback review. Odds are there are other customers of yours who feel the same way as the person who shared their experience. And, for many (including myself), reviews are what seals the deal for me!

3.    Publicly share your consumer interactions

Ask your customers if you can highlight their story of challenge to success when interacting with you. For many customers, they will enjoy the idea of being in the company spotlight, and you get to share a personal story of how you positively addressed a customer’s challenge.

4.    Develop new content strategies to proactively address concerns/questions

This is your new blog content. This is your new marketing content. If the majority of reviews/feedback are identifying some top challenges of your customer, its likely there are others who are not being vocal about it and have purchased or are considering purchasing. Flip the message and be proactive – your customers will find value in this.

5.    Create a customer loyalty program

Lastly, there are sometimes new opportunities unearthed. Consider whether your audience’s challenges would be better addressed if you developed a new arm of your service, like a customer loyalty program or opportunities for add-on purchases. Implementing ways your customer can get more from you creates new revenue streams.