Are You Paying Attention To Customer Feedback

Every business owner knows that customer feedback is important to the organisation. You want to know what your company and staff members are doing right and you also need to know when something goes wrong so you can rectify the situation. But are you paying attention to customer feedback? Not all of it is as obvious as you might first imagine.

Here are some of the key factors to look for when you want to consider all types of feedback – even some you may not immediately recognise.

Customer Feedback – Silence Is Golden?

We’ve all heard the expression that the squeaky wheel is the one that gets the grease. The customer who loudly proclaims your merits or the one who lets their displeasure be known are those you are most likely to respond to. But what about those customers who never provide any written or verbal customer feedback?

When you consider it, the customer who does not say anything at all could be the one you most need to be concerned about. This is the client who was neither dazzled by the experience of doing business with your company nor upset about something that went wrong. And therein lies the problem. You have not given this person a reason to return to your company’s website. It’s not that you have necessarily done a poor job responding to their needs but you haven’t done anything spectacular, either.

The best way to prevent the silent customer from slipping through the cracks is to provide after sales service and send a follow-up email after they have received their order. Ask them to rate the service and their level of satisfaction. Include a question like “would you recommend us to a friend” to give you a better sense of how they feel about their experience.

Not everyone will respond, regardless of how you approach it but take the time and effort and you could be pleasantly surprised or sufficiently educated to help you improve an aspect of your product or service or the supply chain.

Look Who Is Talking

Your customers may not contact you directly but choose, instead, to broadcast a message about your company’s products and services in a blog post, at a social media site, or even at a website that posts complaints.

The best way to stay on top of mentions of your company’s name is by creating a Google alert. An alert that is simply the business name in quotation marks will net the best results but you could also narrow it down to include the word ‘complaint’.

You will certainly want to know if a customer is spreading word of dissatisfaction throughout the internet and do your best to stop it before it ruins your online reputation. Try contacting the poster personally and see if you can rectify the situation that caused their dissatisfaction. Do so immediately.

If the reverse is true and someone is lauding the merits of your company, reward them for doing so. The fact that you noticed will be much appreciated.

Bookmarks And RSS Feeds

Remember to take a look through your website statistics on occasion, too. Pay attention to those who have bookmarked your home page or added an RSS feed for your blog posts. Chances are if these visitors are not yet customers, they will convert in the future because they found something of value on your site. Nurture them just like you would any other sales lead. If they are already a customer, consider offering them an incentive for lead generation.

Watch your subscriber numbers, too. If you suddenly have hundreds fewer following you on Twitter or FriendFeed and your RSS subscriber count has plummeted, you’ve just received feedback that you need to address.

Not all customer feedback is as obvious as a returned online survey or an email message to relate a bad experience. Look for the subtle clues that tell you whether customers think your company is doing a good job or not so you can act accordingly.

Have a most outstanding day.

Sean Rasmussen
Aussie Internet Marketing
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008 - 2010