4 Ways to Effectively Solicit Customer Feedback
Published: September 6, 2018
Author: Lucy Benton
There’s very little room for guesswork in digital marketing. Especially when it comes to figuring out what your existing and potential customers are thinking.
To get a clearer picture of how your users are interacting with your site or brand, you can take advantage of proven methods of getting information directly from customers. They include:
- Feedback boxes
- Feedback buttons
- Live chat
- Website surveys.
In this article, we’re going to discuss how to utilize these methods to get more – and more useful – customer feedback. Let’s get started.
Feedback Boxes
These have been around for a while; many websites have implemented these special buttons and boxes to make it easy to collect information from customers and address any UX issues.
While buttons should be used to collect quick-hit information, you can use boxes to get deeper insight. Here’s a good example of a feedback box from Best Buy:
The point of this box is to get feedback from visitors about a number of topics. You may want to keep adding topics, but be very mindful not to overwhelm your users; less is definitely more.
How to design a feedback box for your website:
- Make it easily accessible (at the bottom of the page or on the sides)
- Minimize the number of fields to fill out, better make them multiple choice answers
- Don’t do a lot of mandatory fields
- Don’t request contact information unless absolutely necessary!
Feedback Buttons
You often see feedback buttons on the sides of webpages inviting users to click on them to leave comments.
Here’s a great example of an effective feedback button from online health food shop Holland & Barrett:
When you click on it, three options appear: Specific Feedback, Generic Feedback, and Contact Us. This is a good move because it provides a customer with options and ensures that their question will be answered by relatively knowledgeable person.
Tips for feedback buttons:
- Make them stand out (most websites place them on sides on a white background).
- Don’t interrupt the user experience with them
- Don’t require a lot of information
- Don’t require contact information unless it’s necessary to reply to the customer later
Live Chat
Live chat remains one of the most important methods of communication between businesses and customers. For example, Inc. wrote that 42 percent of customers said they preferred the live chat function because they didn’t want to wait for a response from support team representative. And even more significantly, 44 percent of online shoppers view live chat as important during an online purchase because they can have their questions answered by a real person, uninterrupted.
Let’s see how SnapEngage does it. In the bottom right corner, which is a typical place for a live chat, you’ll see a readily available chat feature:
Clicking on the button launches the live chat. As soon as you type a message, the system will engage a chat bot, and later an operator if it’s not able to help.
If you’re willing and able to invest in live chat, some tips:
- Make it stand out (the example above is actually great because it has a vibrant color that’s different from the rest of the website)
- Make it 24/7. Customers appreciate it when a business is always available for them, so try to provide always-on support if possible
- Collect contact information only if a reply to a customer is needed
Website Surveys
There are a lot of free survey tools out there, so you should absolutely poll your customers and get valuable feedback. For example, you can ask the visitors of your website about their experience with an updated version or certain products you recently introduced.
Here’s how Siemens does it:
This message appears on the homepage. If a visitor clicks on “Yes,” a new window launches, and it shows questions after they close the website:
The Siemens poll shows a couple of questions on each page (the user has to click on “next page” to get to the next questions), and collects a bunch of information.
While there can be numerous reasons for collecting feedback via website survey, here are some questions you can use:
- What products would you like us to offer?
- What are the features you would us to add to the website?
- Is our pricing policy clear?
- How likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend/colleague?
- What else would you like us to know?
- If you could change something about our company, what would it be?
- Is it easy to browse and purchase from this website?
Whatever your preferred method(s), It’s clear: collecting customer feedback is something that every business must do to survive and thrive. Put these tips in play, set up a process of analyzing the responses that come in, and keep your business on the top of its game.
