How can customer feedback help improve your business

Customer reviews are one of the most important tools that your company has at its disposal. Every business is doing their best in order to keep their customers happy and loyal, but how can you be sure that your efforts are bringing the desired results?

Customer feedback is vital because it allows you to streamline your current marketing strategies and only take the most necessary actions. In other words, your customers have nothing to lose by sharing their honest thoughts and opinions about where and how your business could improve. You can use this information to improve all areas of your business and achieve your marketing goals.

How to get customer feedback

The first step is to actually get reviews and feedback about your business. Sometimes, this can prove to be a bit more difficult, but here are a few ways to collect customer feedback:

-Create free surveys and polls;

-Contacting your customer(s) via email and asking for a quick opinion;

-Check for reviews on third-party websites, i.e. Trustpilot, TripAdvisor, etc.

-Sending out feedback forms with your products or services;

-Enabling reviews on your website.

These tips work great for getting more Google/website reviews, however, please keep in mind that there are two different types of reviews that you can get. For example, if you’re looking for website/GMB (Google My Business) reviews, then please note that these reviews are for the service that you provide, as opposed to the product.

If you’re an eBay/e-commerce/Amazon seller, you need as many product reviews as possible. But if you’re a business owner, then you need reviews for the service that you provide.
Here’s another great article on how to get more Google reviews if that’s what you’re looking for.

However, if it is product reviews you’re after, then here are a few things to consider:

-Leave a note or a small leaflet in the box of your product or the parcel, letting the buyer know that their honest review will help you improve the sales of the product, even if it’s a negative review.

-Send a quick post-sales email, asking your customer to explain how they feel about their new product. That’s the one of the easiest ways of getting more product reviews.

-It might also be a good idea to offer an incentive customers to write reviews, offer them a 10% discount on their next order, or something similar. That’s a great idea since it can also lead to more sales for you, so it’s a win-win situation.

Why is customer feedback so important for your business?

Here are the main reasons why we consider customer feedback to be extremely important and also helpful towards improving your business:

1) Customer feedback helps improve the products and services that you offer

Customer feedback is an insight into what is working well about your product or service and what should be done to improve the customer experience. Their opinion can help you ensure that the end product will actually meet their expectations, solve their problems and fulfill their needs.

The more feedback you receive, the bigger a picture you get of what’s working for your business and what’s not. If you repeatedly receive the same complaints, issues, or errors, it might be a good idea to make some changes.

2) It adds credibility!

Once a potential customer sees that there are lots of positive reviews from satisfied customers, they will be much more inclined to do business with you. And making sure that the services you provide are top-notch is very important, as it will lead to positive reviews, and positive reviews will lead to more sales – we call that the snowball effect.

3) Collecting customer feedback shows you value their opinions

By simply asking your customers for their opinion, or by asking them to leave a review, you’re automatically showing them that you care. If you involve them in shaping your business, they will feel more attached to your company. Listening to their opinion helps you create stronger relations with them, and this is great for business. Why? Because they will be that much more likely to return in the future to your business, and not your competitors.

4) Good feedback generates personal recommendations

Word of mouth advertising is also very successful, especially in inbound marketing where the customer comes to you, not the other way around. Referrals are the most effective, free way of advertising. Face-to-face recommendations usually come from friends or family and can be even more convincing than those of experts in a given field.

5) Take negative reviews as constructive criticism, don’t ignore them!

It’s always nice to get positive reviews about your products or service(s), but sometimes, due to various reasons, you might also end up receiving negative reviews. It’s extremely important to take them into consideration, and see exactly what went wrong and how you could fix it.

I personally consider that positive reviews are good for a company, but negative reviews are even better. This is because they point exactly at what’s wrong and what needs improving.

Reviews on eBay

If you’re a seller on eBay, or any other e-commerce platform, such as Amazon, you’ll know how important customer reviews are. Customers are much more likely to purchase a product from you if they see that your listing has a lot of reviews. But if your listing is new and it has no reviews, customers might be a bit reluctant to purchase from you.

This is why having your store/product reviews displayed clearly in the description of the listing is very useful.

Using Ad-Lister, you have the option to add a widget that displays your most recent store reviews directly on the description of your listings, so that your potential customers can see that you are trusthworthy.

Another important aspect to keep in mind if you’re an eBay seller is that if you end a listing, all the reviews for that listing will be gone. This is why we highly recommend to never end a listing, only if you really have to.

Conclusion

Whether you’re an eBay seller, an Amazon seller, or you own an e-commerce website, you have to keep in mind that customer feedback is extremely important for your business.

It’s a powerful tool that if used properly can help boost your business even further. As we’re already mentioned, great products lead to positive reviews, and in return, positive reviews lead to more sales of the products. But if you end up failing to meet their expectations, you can be certain that they’ll start looking elsewhere.

Customer feedback is everywhere. Learn how to collect it by using different tools and resources, such as surveys or emails. Never underestimate the importance of feedback, and more importantly, never underestimate the power of a negative review (or as we like to call it – constructive criticism).

Keep your customers happy, listen to them, and you can be sure that they’ll be back for more business!

How can customer feedback help improve your business