Top companies believe in the power of obtaining customer feedback consistently. Be it product or service, your customers can provide the best information on competitive products, enhancements, and more.

Benefits of regularly capturing customer feedback:

• Eliminates guesswork and assumptions: You no longer need to guess about your customer’s needs. Get first-hand information about your customers’ requirements directly from them.

• Helps in providing customized solutions: It allows you to understand the needs of different customer segments and create tailored solutions for them.

• Helps with market positioning: It allows you to better understand your position in the market when compared to your competitors

• Helps Improve Product: It helps you to identify any enhancement areas in your product and service

• Helps in Customer Retention: When you ask the customers for feedback it shows them that you value their opinion. This shapes them as loyal customers to your company and you will be able to retain more customers

Many customers are reluctant to fill out surveys or participate in reviews simply because they don’t have the time. Others may be skeptical of the questions that you’re asking and don’t feel comfortable with providing honest information.

So, when asking for feedback, it’s important that you figure out what is the best way to approach your customers.

Different Approaches for Capturing Customer Feedback

1. Follow up email - Did you know that 72% of customers prefer receiving product promotions through email? This method of obtaining feedback is relevant for customers who have been doing business with you for a while now. They will be comfortable providing feedback via email.

2. Live chat - Live chats are a great way to capture instant feedback. Nowadays, a lot of customers and prospects prefer to communicate via chats rather than emails. This is because chats guarantee an immediate response. So, you can use the same chat to get immediate feedback from the customers as well. This medium is more relevant for online services

3. Online Survey Tools like SurveyMonkey - You can use online survey platforms like SurveyMonkey to send a survey link to the customer. But the % of responses are low in these cases

4. Surveying through a mobile app - Here, you can create a survey in a mobile app and have the customers take it in a phone or a tablet. This method of collecting feedback is most useful for field sales reps or service agents. Whenever they visit a customer, they can have the customer fill-up the survey then and there and get feedback.

5. Pen and Paper Feedback - This old fashioned way of collecting feedback is still used by a lot of companies. Since it is cost-effective, many companies still have their customers fill out the survey questionnaire on paper.

Questions to include in your Surveys

Below are some survey questions that you can ask your customers and prospects in order to capture

• Market information

• Customer behavior information

• Product performance

Questions for Prospects

This set of questions is more applicable to prospective customers. If you already know that they are using a competitive solution, this could be a way to gather information about their pain points.

Reason to ask this question: This question lets you find out if the prospect is currently using any of your competitors’ products

Benefit: It’s always a good idea to first know if the prospect already has a solution in place. This not just helps you with your sales strategy, but it’s also a great intelligence gathering on your competitors.

Reason to ask this question: This question helps you to understand how satisfied the prospect is with the solution that they are using currently.

Benefit: If the prospect says “No” to this question, then you can take this as an opportunity and pitch your product to them addressing their pain points. And, if they say that they are satisfied with their current solution, then dig deeper and understand what is working for them.

This allows you to understand what your competitors are doing right that is working for their customers. You can then take inspiration from it and improve your product.

Reason to ask this question: This question allows you to understand the areas where your competitor’s product is lagging

Benefit: If you already have this feature, use it to pitch your product to the prospect.

Reason to ask this question: This question prompts the prospect to talk about their business problem which led them to consider this solution

Benefit: By asking this question you will be able to understand what significant events have triggered the prospect to consider this solution.

Questions for Customers

Reason to ask this Question: This will give you an idea about how satisfied your customer is with your product.

Benefit: It is crucial that you understand your customers’ overall experience with your product. This information helps you to plan the roadmap for product development and also address any concern before it becomes an issue.

Reason to ask this question: This question lets you understand what the customers see as the highlights in your product.

Benefit: With this question, you will be able to understand what your customers admire the most in your product. If a lot of customers say that a particular feature is their favorite then that becomes the key feature of your product. You will then be able to market or advertise the product by highlighting that key feature.

Reason to ask this question: This question helps you to understand what improvements your customers would like to see in the product

Benefit: Product development is truly valuable when it meets the expectations of the customers. The information that you get from this question will help you to make improvements to your product in such a way that it appeals to your customers.

Reason to ask this question: This question captures the overall impression that your customers have about you. And, you will be able to identify who can become your champions in promoting your product.

Benefit: Nothing is as effective as “word of mouth” from the customers when it comes to marketing a product. Statistics show that 92% of people believe suggestions from family and friends more than advertising. So, this question lets you understand how many of your customers truly believe in your product and are willing to promote it to their peers.

The Best Customer Satisfaction Survey

• Keep the surveys short. Nobody wants to spend hours answering a survey.

• Have 1 or 2 mandatory questions that are most important for you. So, even if you have 5 questions in the survey, the respondent has the option to just answer the mandatory questions and complete it

• Have your sales rep or service engineer collect the feedback on their device. So that the customer doesn’t have to make the effort to even open the survey. Make it as easy as possible for them to give the feedback

Want to gather competitive intelligence from the field?

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Want to capture your customers’ insights on your brand and products?

Read: Collect Customer Insights on your Brand and Products

Want to know how to efficiently capture a new market?

Read: How to Expand into New Markets Efficiently?

Looking for the right set of survey questions to capture your customers’ insights on your brand and products?

Collect Customer Insights on your Brand and Products