How to ask customers for feedback: Useful services, advice and statistics

Customer feedback truly matters for your business no matter what you sell or do. You might write articles for your corporate blog like a pro, shoot fantastic videos for your YouTube channel or come up with engaging social media posts. Still, if you don’t feature your customers’ reviews on your website, you’re losing a lot of potential clients. 

As the statistics show, about 95% of e-commerce buyers check reviews before purchasing something. That’s the number you can’t ignore. Collecting customers’ opinions and ratings is beneficial not only for your conversion rate, but it’s also a great chance to fine-tune specific processes within your company. By analysing reviews, you can identify what exactly makes your clients gravitate toward your business and what pushes them out. You can find out why they buy certain products more often than others and what makes them abandon their shopping carts. 

Make sure to regularly ask your shoppers for reviews to decrease churn rate, skyrocket sales and tweak your business processes. How to ask consumers for feedback so that they give it to you – read in the upcoming sections.

The definition of customer feedback is as simple as that – it is the information shared by your customers to thank you for your services or complain about them. No matter whether it is positive or negative feedback, it’s critical data you can make use of to launch positive changes in your business.

Customers’ reviews build trust for your company and enhance the likelihood of your products to be purchased, especially if they go with high price tags. According to the Spiegel research, the conversion rates went up to 380% for expensive goods right after shoppers’ reviews were displayed. That’s because 88% of shoppers trust other peoples’ comments as much as personal recommendations. 

Client’s feedback is an ideal breeding ground for ideas to raise the bar of your business performance. For example, by asking users how they like your site interface, you may learn what areas need to be improved. When running a survey about your sales department work, you can find out what communication mistakes your workers make. If you ask your blog readers whether they find the material useful or not, you can tinker with your content plan. No matter what information you collect, by doing that, you show your customers that you care about their wants and needs.

Before dwelling on how to get feedback from your customers, let’s see what you can do with negative feedback. Actually, it is a valuable source of information and definitely nothing to cry about. Far-from-perfect comments offer you lots of insights into what to improve. Of course, if they aren’t fake one-star reviews from dishonest competitors. 

When getting negative feedback, think of it as your chance to make things right for the next time. And answer it as fast as possible. Avoid turning on a poker face regime and ignoring the issue. It won’t sort itself out. You are shown your weak points, deal with them. That is how you can reply.

Bad review: You promised me to send a free face cream when I buy from you next time. When I did that, I got nothing but my order. What’s more, your employee argued with me over it when I called to clear things up. So disappointed! 

Example of a good response: Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. We’re deeply sorry for that unfortunate misunderstanding. Service may be very unpredictable. Perhaps our employee messed things up. Anyway, it is our fault, and we want to fix it. Please, contact our manager at your earliest convenience. 

As you see, it is not that difficult to recapture a disappointed customer and save your reputation. And as a bonus, you will get valuable insights into your business processes.

Gathering customers’ feedback is not that challenging because people want you to listen to their opinions. They are especially willing to write some 5-star reviews when their expectations are entirely met. The truth is that 67% of shoppers will support your company with their voices if you ask them to. However, some things may hamper them from leaving their comments on your site.

Although many buyers are eager to say a few words about their shopping experiences, they won’t do that if you don’t give them anything in return. And it is not only about some bonuses or money-off coupons. Customers should see that you collect their reviews to make their shopping experiences better, not just to add some user-generated content to your website or social media account. That’s why you should be transparent and clear from the very beginning of your relationship with a customer. 

Another thing that can backfire is when you ask for feedback in a vague manner. For instance, “Don’t hesitate to share your opinion” or “Feel free to leave some comments” are a definite no-no. Your customer won’t bat an eyelid when seeing such wishy-washy calls to actions. They don’t mean anything and fail to offer any benefits. 

So, how to request feedback right? There are 6 proven methods you can bring into play. Let’s talk about them in detail.

Surveys are great to collect feedback on your products, the information presented on your website, interface, and so much more. They aren’t difficult to organise and analyse. You can add them to your website or send them directly to your customers via messenger or email. No matter what way you go, surveys will bring you some valuable pieces of knowledge on how to enhance your clients’ satisfaction. 

They can be of different types: 

• Pop-up surveys These are surveys that literally pop up when your customers do certain actions on your website. When you set them up, you can add some conditions that will automatically trigger the event. For example, your client is going to abandon their shopping cart, display a short survey asking something like “We’re sorry you aren’t going to complete your purchase. Please, write us what went wrong so we can fix it for the next time”.
  
  Demonstrate all kinds of pop-up surveys along your customer’s journey. But keep them short. That’s crucial unless you want them to be closed. Short forms usually show a higher conversion rate. If to be precise, they result in about 160% higher rate than long surveys. Stick to 1 open question or up to 5 yes/no questions. Or ask your clients to rate the way your business performs (from 1 to 10, for example). 
  
  Here are some services that will come in handy to create pop-up surveys: WisePops, Survey Monkey, Refiner. 
  
• Widget surveys Let your customers express their opinions by embedding feedback widgets in your site. They are small survey forms located in the corner of the webpage, and they open up when you click on them. You can display widgets wherever you need: homepage, shopping cart, corporate blog, etc. By using this method of collecting reviews, you unobtrusively gather information since your users can click on the survey only if they want so. 
  Check these helpful programs – Feedbackify and Usersnap. 
  
• Collapsible pop-up surveys They are a combination of pop-up surveys with widget forms. You integrate a collapsible question form on your website, and it appears according to the users’ behaviour. However, if your customer doesn’t want to fill it out, it won’t just disappear but will be minimised and moved to the corner of the webpage. So, your client will see a small widget that won’t bother them.

Sending emails is probably the best way to get in-depth information about your performance. But the way you approach your customers truly matters. 

When sending triggered or transactional emails, you can simply add a call to action, asking to complete the survey. End your letter like that “Tell us what you think about our service” or “Tell us how you really feel about our products” and place the button that leads to your survey. Remember to keep it short. 

If you have time and resources, you can schedule a call with your customers. But this strategy works only for loyal clients, meaning those who buy from you all the time or use your services by subscription. Normally people who are going to stay with you are interested in the service being improved.

Everybody loves presents, bonuses and all sorts of perks. Your clients aren’t an exception to that. So, it will be a brilliant move to offer some discounts or anything that will make your clients happy. That’s the best way to encourage them to complete the survey, especially if you have about 10 questions. Look how great  Kate Spade & Company managed that!

If you don’t have so many presents for your buyers, pick a handful of your loyal customers and send them a thank you letter. Add a personal touch by referring to them by the name (avoid the “Dear user” introduction). Ask your clients to answer a few questions about your service so that you can fine-tune them for their better experiences. This approach will help you cultivate mutually-beneficial, lasting relationships. That’s how a financial company Payoneer talks to their customers. And they mention how much time the survey takes. People are more likely to do something when they know what to expect.

Given the importance of targeting the right audience, you should know your customers like the back of your hands. You can use emails to find out more about them. If you need to specify something, ask a straightforward question. To get your letter replied, let your users answer in a few clicks – better just one! Like in this example. The clothes store is wondering whether its reader is a female or male.

Analysing your customers’ behaviour on the website isn’t precisely collecting their feedback. You don’t need to reach them directly and ask them how they like your resource. You just sneak a glance at where they tap, click and scroll. By using special tools, you can identify problem zones of your website, see what areas are challenging to navigate, what products are checked a lot and what the outsiders are. To do that, use the tool that can track users’ mouse movements and show you the analytics. 

By tracking heat maps, you can also see which sections of your site are the most popular and which are the least, what problems users have when creating an account or paying for their orders. Taking a glance at your users’ activity is one of the best ways to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of your business. 

Here are some heat map programs: Matamo, Open Web Analytics, CrazyEgg. Suppose you need more analytical tools for your business (paid and free), head over to this article. We’ve gathered 7 best services to help you monitor all kinds of metrics.

Live-chats are handy customer service software aimed to provide timely help to users. If you happen to have a chatbot integrated on your site, use it to ask your clients for feedback. Actually, experts say that in 2020 people are likely to pay more if they like customer service, and this tendency isn’t going to fade away anytime soon. Live-chats, coupled with surveys, show your clients that you care about their shopping experiences, so use them wisely. 

To run a successful survey on your website, meaning the one that will get a lot of responses, put a premium on the questions you ask. They should be clear-cut so that users bother to answer them. 

There are two types of questions you can ask – open-ended and closed-ended. The former requires 1-2 sentence answers, and the latter – yes or no answers. When conducting a survey, opt for closed-ended questions as they gather more responses.

Examples of closed-ended questions: 

• Will you recommend us to your friends? 
• Do you read our corporate blog?  
• Do you find our Instagram account engaging and useful? 

Examples of open-ended questions: 

• What is the most common reason for you to abandon your shopping cart? 
• What are your favourite ways to pay for your order? 
• How do you like our customer service? 
• What can we do to improve your shopping experience?

If you are interested in your customers’ opinions, what are you waiting for? Ask them. And social media polls are just the ticket for that. People love scrolling their news feeds so rest assured that they will find some time to tap on your survey. But here is the thing – your polls should be eye-catching to make more users stop and click. You’re welcome to use hilarious pictures and emojis. 

Instagram is the most convenient for polls as it has a built-in Stories feature. Facebook is not rocket science as well. To create a poll there, you have to go to the Facebook Business Manager, Poll by Fans Vote or launch a survey right in Facebook. By the way, according to the BuzzSumo report, polls are among the most engaging post types. So, they are great to both collect useful information and increase your engagement rate.  

Your targeted audience may prefer LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube, and that’s okay. Those platforms also allow you to set up polls. For example, if you have a YouTube business account, you can run a survey in the community tab. Unless you don’t know how to start a business channel on the second most popular search engine in the world, you need to check this article.

Your Thank You page has an untapped potential you can’t miss out on. If your customers are already there, that means they’ve done one of the conversion actions. They might have purchased from you, registered an account or whatever. Take advantage of that and ask your clients for feedback. 

You can post a link to the Google Forms or embed a survey in your Thank You page. Then you may use the information collected to enhance the quality of your content, customer service and products. 

Gain an understanding of how you perform by asking one or two questions. Avoid writing something like that “Thank you for ordering from us. Tell us more about your experience”. Instead, be more specific. You can ask questions related to your products or those that will give you some insights into your buyer persona: 

• What do you want us to fix on the website? 
• How do you like our assortment of books? 
• How often do you buy perfumes? 
• How do you entertain yourself in public transport? 

Ask whatever is useful for your business. Before you bat an eyelash, you will get plenty of relevant information that any analytical tool can’t give.

When having tons of feedback from your clients, look for trends, meaning the issues that pop up more often than others and act on them. For example, customers may complain about a tedious checkout process. Then make sure to add fast and trouble-free payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. If you sell on Instagram, your clients may like paying by invoices as it is more secure and convenient. 

Anyway, listen to your customers and do whatever it takes to make them happy. And let us help you with that. Tranzzo is a treasure trove of hassle-free payment methods that will meet your shoppers’ needs. You can check our pricing plans and sign up.