How to get more customer feedback: The complete checklist

It’s a fact: getting feedback from customers is always a great way to improve your product. A simple “I like this feature a lot,” “Maybe you could change this,” or “I have not found that feature” can help you understand which problems they face in their daily lives and what potential solutions you could build. That’s why you should always try to get more customer feedback. But you'll ask: how should I do it? Which method should I apply to get more of it?

Well, it's a tricky path, but luckily, your search is over. After investing countless hours into experimenting with different methods ourselves, we've found a number of strategies that strike a balance between collecting good feedback and maintaining a seamless customer experience. With these tips, you'll finally be able to understand your customers better and make your product even better.

1. Ask for Feedback Proactively

First, the most important thing to keep in mind is to always look for an opportunity to request feedback. Don't rely on customers to offer their feedback spontaneously; take a more proactive approach and constantly request their input! Whenever you have a customer interaction, seize the opportunity and ask your customers for their thoughts and suggestions directly.

What's more, you always have to make sure to collect feedback from the right person. To do so, analyze your customer journey, that is, from the moment they first hear about you to their decision to buy your product or service. This will enable you to identify touchpoints where you can actively ask for feedback that's right in sync with their journey, making it feel like a natural and personalized conversation.

Example: when it comes to gathering feedback after a customer makes a purchase (the 'buy' stage), you could send them a friendly message: "Hi there! We're thrilled you've chosen our platform! We want to make sure you're loving it. Got a minute to tell us how it's working for you? Your insights will help us keep improving and delivering the best for you!"

2. Surveys

Although this might sound simple, conducting surveys is one of the best ways to get customer feedback. By creating surveys with specific questions related to your product or service, you will make sure to build a product that will solve your customers’ issues. For instance, if a user has been inactive for a while, you might want to ask them why they have not been on your platform, if they have been using another tool, or if something was missing. For this, you should think about using online survey tools such as tally forms or Jotforms and embedding these feedback survey links right on your website or emails.

In combination with customer surveys, you can also use metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure customer satisfaction. The NPS shows how likely your customers are to recommend your brand to others by asking, "From 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend me to a friend?" and will provide quantitative data that can help you track customer sentiment and identify areas for improvement.

3. Live Chat and Customer Support Interactions

You should also implement live chat features on your website (e.g., live chatbot) and encourage customers to connect with your support team. These interactions not only offer quick assistance to fix things (imagine a customer not finding a feature on your website) but also serve as an opportunity to get feedback from them directly. You help them find the feature, and, at the same time, you can note their feedback and improve access to that specific feature on your website so that the following users will not have this problem anymore. It's also a chance to show your customers that their opinions and thoughts truly matter to you.

4. Feedback Forms and Dedicated Emails

Placing feedback forms on a website or implementing a dedicated email address (e.g., [email protected]) is also an excellent way to collect more customer feedback. As simple as it sounds, this makes it super convenient for them to share their thoughts while encountering an issue. You can also directly integrate a feedback button in your tool rather than on your website. It's like having a hotline straight to your users' thoughts where they can shoot you their ideas and complaints. Your software developers can quickly identify user challenges, address any technical issues, and report feedback for further improvements to the tool.

Example: here above is an idea of a feedback form directly implemented in our tool. This way, our customer can report if there is a bug, if they have any questions, or want to request other features on the platform.

5. Newsletter

Although this might not seem very straightforward at first, newsletters can also serve as an effective feedback tool because they provide a direct line of communication with your customer base. For instance, you can create a monthly 'Feedback Feature' section in your newsletter in the form of a survey or poll where customers can share their thoughts on recent product updates or suggest ideas for future enhancements. It's easy to set up since it is integrated into the newsletter, and it's a good way to get some insights into your users’ experience.

6. Social Media and Online Reviews

Another way to gather customer feedback, of course, is to monitor social media platforms, online review sites such as Capterra or G2, and other community forums. In these online spaces, customers share their thoughts as well as their experiences with your product spontaneously. They might also discuss similar products or industry-related topics. That can provide insights from customers who leave both positive and negative feedback, where you can identify pain points, gather feature requests, and understand user perspectives.

Example: on a platform like X (formerly Twitter), you can set up alerts to notify you whenever your brand is mentioned. If a customer tweets about their recent experience with your product or issues they face in their daily lives in your industry, you can respond rapidly with a message asking for more information, or what they would like to see more as a solution to their problems.

7. Shared VIP Channels

In addition to more traditional feedback methods, you should consider creating shared VIP channels on platforms such as Slack or WhatsApp with a few of your close customers. You can have "real" conversations with them and get quick (and good-quality) feedback on what they want because the contact is personalized. And once again, this will help customize your offerings to fit their needs.

Example: having VIP channels on Slack works really well for us at Productlane. A few of our close customers are always happy to share their feedback on new features we've implemented and have a direct line if they encounter any issues while using our platform.

8. User Interviews

Moving away from the digital world, you can also conduct user interviews. Nothing beats one-on-one user interactions because engaging in conversations with them reveals precious information that otherwise remains hidden. For instance, in these interviews, you can ask your customers how they navigate through your platform and what features they find intuitive or confusing. You’ll really gain a better understanding of your users' experience by asking specific but open-ended questions. And with the “human touch” of a direct conversation (even if it is online!), you create a deeper connection between your business and your customers, you can trust us on this one!

9. Focus Groups and Beta Testing

A practical method for collecting qualitative feedback is to conduct organized focus groups or beta-testing sessions with your users. If you’re a tech startup launching a new platform (like we did!), you might want to invite a selected group of users to participate in a beta testing phase, where they can explore your app's new features and provide feedback on its functionality, user interface, and overall user experience. By doing so, you can improve your product or service to better meet the specific needs of your target audience and solve their problems.

10. Incentives and Rewards

Finally, we know that some companies also encourage their customers to provide all kinds of feedback by sharing rewards such as discounts, exclusive content access, or entry into contests. These incentives are another way to collect feedback because they serve as a motivator for your customers to invest the time and effort to articulate their experiences and opinions. Additionally, this approach also has the potential to attract new customers, as it shows your commitment to engaging with your audience.

Conclusion

That's it! By adopting these ten feedback collection methods, you can gather more high-quality feedback and make informed decisions that will lead you to improve your business growth. Remember, every piece of feedback is invaluable in helping you understand your customers' problems and needs, especially during the product discovery phase. Building a successful product is really all about solving those problems, so always keep an ear out for what your customers have to say.

And don't worry; there are products out there to help you streamline this process. Tools like Productlane offer great solutions to collect, organize, and derive insights from customer feedback coming from all channels, ensuring you're on the right track to solving those problems and meeting your customers' needs.