Wondering how to get customer feedback online?
Customer feedback is an incredibly important part of any marketing strategy. How can you be sure that your customers like your products, services, website, or content without it?
Not only that, but making improvements recommended by real customers or users can help you grow your business and make more money.
If you want to run a successful business, you need customer feedback. Period.
However, that’s easier said than done. How do you get people to leave feedback for you?
In this article, we’ll look at 6 strategies you can use to collect the customer feedback you need to improve your business and see it thrive.
Customer Feedback Video Walkthrough
6 Best Ways to Collect Customer Feedback Online
Our favorite ways to collect customer feedback online are:
- Use Website Feedback Tools
- Use Online Surveys
- Use Email
- Use SMS Campaigns
- Use Exit-Intent Popups
- Use Social Media
1. Use Website Feedback Tools
With a website feedback tool, you can easily ask for real, verbatim feedback from your website visitors in real-time. Use it to ask specific question(s), or let users provide feedback on any topic.
Our favorite website feedback tool is the UserFeedback plugin for WordPress. With UserFeedback, it’s easy and fast to create a popup feedback survey on your site.
To effectively use website feedback tools for customer feedback, businesses should:
- Ask the right questions: Ask questions that will help you gather actionable insights to improve your website or customer experience. Come up with the questions whose answers will help you the most! For instance, if you run an eCommerce business, ask if the customer is able to find what they’re looking for, if there were issues with checkout, or what new products they’d like to see added to your shop.
- Be strategic with placement: With a tool like UserFeedback, you can choose specific pages to place your surveys. So, you could place a survey on your article about collecting user feedback asking if the visitor has any questions about collecting user feedback.
For more about using UserFeedback to collect feedback online, check out How to Collect User Feedback in WordPress.
2. Use Online Surveys
Online surveys are one of the most effective ways to gather customer feedback. Tools like WPForms and UserFeedback make it easy to create and distribute surveys, and collect and analyze the results.
Feedback surveys can be located in popups, widgets, or website pages. Use them to ask specific questions or very general questions about your products, content, or user experience.
When creating an online survey, it’s important to keep the following tips in mind:
- Keep it short and sweet: Most website visitors don’t have the time or patience to complete a long, complex survey. Keep your survey short and to the point, focusing on the most important questions.
- Consider offering an incentive: To encourage customers to take your survey, consider offering a small incentive such as a discount or downloadable resource.
- Use clear, simple language: Don’t use technical jargon in your surveys. Keep them as simple as you can! You can also ask one question per page to really avoid distractions.
For more about how to create online surveys with WPForms and UserFeedback, check out How to Create a Survey in WordPress (Step by Step).
3. Use Email
Email is another really effective channel to use when asking for customer feedback. Not only can you send surveys out to your email subscribers through targeted email messages, but you can also send them as a follow-up when a customer makes a purchase or interacts with your business.
To effectively use email for customer feedback, businesses should:
- Make the call to action clear: Write a simple explanation of the survey and why the person is receiving it, then make the callout button or link to take the survey the clear focus of the email.
- Send follow-up emails promptly: If you’re sending a survey after a customer’s interaction with your business, send it right away while their experience is still fresh in their mind.
- Personalize and segment: Sending your survey emails to different audience segments and personalizing the message can increase the likelihood of recipients responding.
Looking for the best email tools to send out your survey emails? Check out 6+ Best Email Newsletter Tools & Services (Expert Pick).
4. Use SMS Campaigns
SMS (text) surveys are a quick and effective way to gather customer feedback, particularly because you can reach people right on their phones where they tend to spend quite a bit of time.
To effectively use SMS surveys for customer feedback, businesses should:
- Keep it short: SMS surveys should be brief, typically just a few questions long. This helps get you a higher response rate and makes it easier for recipients to participate.
- Personalize the message: Address recipients by name and personalize the message.
- Respond automatically: When someone fills out your survey, send an automatic thank you message to express your gratitude.
Want to keep track of how many people access your site via SMS in Google Analytics? Check out How to Track Your SMS Campaigns in Google Analytics.
5. Use Exit-Intent Popups
Exit-Intent popups are popups that appear when a user is about to leave your site. That can be a great time to ask for feedback! Were they unable to find what they needed? If they’re exiting from your pricing page or cart page, for instance, what’s their barrier to purchase?
To find out, use a tool like OptinMonster to show a popup with a survey in it when a user is about to leave.
To effectively use popup surveys for customer feedback, businesses should:
- Put popup surveys on pages that make sense: Someone who landed on your home page and isn’t looking at any other content before leaving probably is not the right target for your survey. If they’re about to leave a cart, product, or guide page, though, that’s a great time to hit them with a survey.
- Give respondents an incentive: What can you offer in exchange for taking the survey? Especially when someone’s about to leave your website, it really pays to offer them something in exchange for staying to take the survey. Offer an asset, an entry into a giveaway, or whatever makes sense for your business.
- Keep it very short: Nobody who’s about to leave your site will suddenly decide to stay to take a long survey. Go with two questions maximum.
For more on popups, check out How to Add a Popup on WordPress (2 Easy Ways).
6. Use Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool for gathering customer feedback, as it provides a direct line of communication between businesses and their customers. By monitoring social media channels, businesses can quickly find and address customer issues, complaints, and suggestions.
To effectively use social media for customer feedback, businesses should:
- Set up alerts: Use social media monitoring tools to set up alerts for brand mentions, keywords, and hashtags related to your business.
- Respond quickly: When customers reach out on social media with questions or complaints, it’s important to respond quickly and professionally. Then you can quickly resolve the issue and show your commitment to customer service and satisfaction.
- Send out surveys: You don’t have to wait for feedback to come in on social media. You can ask any time! Post your survey questions to your followers as polls, links to surveys, or just simple questions.
How to Use Customer Feedback
Alright, so you’ve gathered customer feedback. Now, how do you keep track of it and use it to improve your business?
Here are a few “quick wins” you can get from your customer feedback:
- Improve existing products or figure out what products your store is missing
- Identify holes in the way you welcome new customers, users, or subscribers. If many people ask the same question or have the same issue, you can make that improvement.
- Get more reviews on top review sites by asking for them from users who give you great compliments.
- Lower the bounce rate on your website by identifying the top reasons why people are bouncing and taking steps to fix them.
- Use what you learn from feedback to inform your marketing plans. Use feedback to decide what to put on sale, what messaging to put in your email marketing campaigns, and more.
That’s it!
We hope you like our article on the best ways to get customer feedback online. While you’re here, make sure to check out 32 Marketing Hacks Guaranteed to Grow Your Traffic!
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