According to Microsoft’s State of Global Customer Service Report, brands that proactively invite and implement customer feedback are viewed more favorably by 77% of consumers than the ones that don’t.
In today’s competitive market, offering a high-grade product and delivering great customer service is critical. And you simply can’t do that if you aren’t listening to your customers.
What if certain sections of your website are negatively impacting the overall user experience? Or what if your customers are struggling to get in contact with the right people on your team? You’ll only know about these problems if you’re actively working to make sure your customers can communicate with you—and listening to them when they do.
Reviews are a great way to gather feedback, but if you want to build trust and increase customer loyalty, you need to act on that feedback. Doing this will help you not only understand your customers better and make them feel heard but also improve customer experience, increase customer loyalty, and make well-informed business decisions, which will, in turn, contribute to the growth of your business.
Three Ways to Utilize Customer Feedback to Grow Your Business
So, this brings us to our big question: How can I use customer feedback to grow my business?
We’ve got the answers you’re looking for. In this blog post, we’ll be shedding light on three ways you can use customer feedback to improve your processes and grow your business.
1. Curate Your Content
If you’re investing your marketing budget in content production for your blog or email newsletters, it’s important to understand how well your audience is reacting to that content.
What if your emails aren’t relevant to some of your subscribers? If you keep rolling out irrelevant emails, you’ll witness a major spike in your unsubscribe rate.
And the same is applicable to your blog production efforts. People won’t keep coming back to a blog if the content they find there is irrelevant or unhelpful.
You need to keep in mind that different prospects are at different stages of the customer journey. While some may have recently discovered your brand, others may be ready to purchase your product or service. Because of this, creating blog content about only one or two topics or rolling out the same email newsletter to every prospect isn’t advisable.
Instead, segment your customers. This will help you put the right message in front of the right people at the right time. To get started, if you already have an email list, you might consider creating a short survey with questions like:
- Do you like reading our blog posts?
- Do you like receiving weekly/monthly email newsletters from us?
- What type of emails would you like to receive in the future?
- What types of blog posts do you like to read?
- Would you like us to send product-related information, educational content, or both?
You can then use the survey feedback to segment your audience and put the right message in front of the right people.
2. Improve the Customer Experience
Gone are the days when the only way to win customers’ hearts and build long-term relationships was by offering the highest-quality products or services. More than 86% of modern customers are willing to pay top dollar for a great customer experience—people want personalized interactions and convenience at every step of the customer journey.
And while you’re likely always trying to deliver a great customer experience, you’ll only be able to know what’s working and what’s not by implementing customer feedback.
To improve customer experience and increase customer loyalty, read through customer feedback from your Google Business Profile and other review sites. Consider reaching out to both happy and unhappy customers and ask how you could have improved their experience with your company.
You might find that people don’t like your current payment process or that they wish it was easier to communicate with your customer service team. When possible, make changes to your processes based on their feedback.
By implementing changes based on customer feedback, you’ll be letting your customers know that you are listening to them and value their opinion. Not only will this help you build trust and strengthen existing relationships, but it will also position you as a customer-focused company, which will encourage new customers to do business with you.
3. Improve Your Products
Remember that even the best products and services have room for improvement. While no one likes receiving a negative review, the silver lining is that negative reviews show you where you can improve your products and services. Even the smallest changes to a product or service have the potential to increase customer satisfaction and help take your business to the next level.
You probably won’t be able to update your products and services every time someone has a complaint or suggestion, and that’s okay. But when customers do give you negative feedback about a product or service, rather than feeling discouraged, try to view it as an opportunity to become better. You even may find that your customers suggest innovative new ideas that you’d never considered before.
Listening to and Acting On Customer Feedback Will Help Your Business Grow
With customer expectations higher than ever, it’s critical for business owners to listen to feedback and implement changes when appropriate. By listening to your customers, you’ll build their trust in your brand, improve your customer experience, improve your products and services, and ultimately grow your business.
Podium makes it easy for you to collect, manage, and respond to customer feedback so you can remain competitive in today’s market.
