What does it mean to have a “successful business”?
Does it mean incredible conversion rates, huge income, and generally liked products?
Or does it mean happy and satisfied customers?
I know what some of you reading this might answer that customer’s satisfaction is also important, but what would really catch your attention is “conversion rates”, “income” and “liked products”.
What if I told you that happy and satisfied customers actually can lead to increased conversion rates, better income and well-liked products?
The voice of your customers and customer feedback is an extremely valuable source of information that you can use when improving and developing your business. You need to treat your customers and users like a font of knowledge that you can dip into and get tons of priceless feedback. Ignoring that may lead to bad consequences – that failure is often caused by neglecting your customers.
In this article we, the Userpeek team, will show you why exactly listening to your user’s voice matters and what you can gain in return. Be all ears because what you are going to hear is important.
That one is rather obvious and self-explanatory, but it is the basic principle of using customer feedback. By reaching out to your customers you can learn what their problems with your services are, what exactly they think needs to be changed, what they find annoying, what they like and so on. The potential is limitless. Most major businesses today value their customer’s opinion and base their future decisions on the feedback they receive (also see the link to read about those who failed to do that).
Use feedback to improve your customers’ experience
When your users and customers are happy, so are you. With feedback you gather from them you can improve their experience when using your product or service. It is true that businesses need to focus on user experience in order to be successful. If your customers find your offer not only compelling but also pleasant in use, they will be more inclined to come back for more. Also, great experience will make you differentiate from your competitors, and not in a bad way.
Give your customers feedback that they are important to you
Everyone likes to be recognized and acknowledged, and when your customers feel they aren’t just a statistic, they are actually fonder of your company and brand. Once the buyers are able to voice their opinion about the product or service they are using, they feel like they are actually making a change. This involvement endorses the feeling of being connected with your product and service.It is more and more popular to gather feedback through social media, and it shows how this connection enriches the whole customer-seller experience.
Feedback increases customer retention
As it has been said, communication with your customers can help you gauge whether they are happy and makes them feel acknowledged. Once you meet their needs you will be able to keep them for longer as they are satisfied with your service, and therefore will not want to go anywhere else. Do not fix what is not broken, do not change the service you already like – a principle that many people follow.
As it has been said, communication with your customers can help you gauge whether they are happy and makes them feel acknowledged. Once you meet their needs you will be able to keep them for longer as they are satisfied with your service, and therefore will not want to go anywhere else. Do not fix what is not broken, do not change the service you already like – a principle that many people follow.
Information whether your customers are satisfied with your service or product is not the only think your customers provide with their feedback. They will also paint you a great picture showing what the image of your company is. Let’s say that you are selling watches, and they are outstanding, but your purses on the other hand aren’t received that well. You will be known as the provider of watches, and you can use that fact in order to introduce better and wider product offer connected with time measurement gizmos.
Feedback equals trends
If you are unsure how to spice up your current offer or make yourself stand out more in the market, you conduct research in order to find out what is hot right now. But people usually have the knowledge what is in, even though sometimes they may not realize that. We are social animals and we tend to follow examples or mimic behaviors, and that is why observing people in large numbers can result in interesting data about current trends. However, researching sounds rather cumbersome, doesn’t it? Well, you can do it simply by using customer feedback, and not only do you benefit from all the features listed above, but you also gain data which can be used in further product development. If your customers imply in feedback forms that despite your awesome designs you do not offer extremely popular drawstring backpacks, you’d better consider introducing them into your merchandise.
Customer feedback provides data used in future business decisions
Following the aforementioned principle, whenever you are making a decision regarding your business, you need actual tangible data rather than simple hunches that something “might” work. Customer feedback is one surefire way of getting valuable data. Let’s go back to the drawstring backpacks – you have already introduced them, but your customers constantly make suggestions to make them larger in order to fit A4 formats. Your competitors cannot hold these either, so you make a decision to introduce larger backpacks into your offer. Suddenly, you stand out in the market and your product is even more valued by your customers, because you met their needs.
Customer feedback leads to recommendations
Once your customers are satisfied with your service and the feedback they received from you by actively showing that you do listen to your people, they will be more inclined to actually recommend your product to others. Customer advocacy is one of the best promotional methods one could have, and it is rather easily achievable. Just a follow-up to the previous example – your backpack is great and one-of-a-kind on the market. Customers who bought it will recommend it to friends once asked “Where’d you get that killer bag?” they will point straight to you. Talk with your customers and let them talk to others for you.
The final feedback
The best reasons why you need voice of customer in a nutshell. Of course, the provided examples relate to selling a specific product, but you can also use feedback when improving your website (and that leads to increased conversion and customer satisfaction too!) Honestly, you can apply VoC however you want – your customer’s voice is a valuable piece of data that is very versatile in use; basically the sky is your limit.
