Obtaining customer feedback regularly is critical to the growth of an organisation. It will influence and inspire innovation through the delivery of better and new products and services, enable you to leverage emerging market trends and provide an essential guide to making informed decisions. There are multiple ways in which feedback can be obtained.
This blog will unpack why it is important, different methods to get feedback, what the right types of questions are and how often these questions should be asked to provide the best results for your business.
Why is customer feedback important and what do you do with it?
As we may be interacting with our customers daily, we may make assumptions or take certain things for granted. It is important to test these assumptions by obtaining direct feedback. As mentioned previously, being deeply in tune with our customers and clients helps us to make better decisions, build superior products and services (think Netflix serving you specific shows based on your individual interests), and innovate to give you the edge over your competitors.
The feedback will inform your strategic process, helping you to strengthen your strategic position in the market and craft a clearer and more impactful strategic execution plan to move your business forward.
Feedback will also direct your marketing strategy and execution process, providing key attributes that may need to be highlighted in your communication to enable you to differentiate in your market more effectively.
Suggested methods for collecting customer feedback
Feedback must be collected from both a qualitative and quantitative point of view. Before undertaking any research, it is important that you are clear on the specific objectives and how you plan to use the feedback you receive.
Quantitative research
This type of research can be conducted by sending out surveys to your customers regularly, whether it be monthly, quarterly, or bi-annually. Critical information to track via surveys include customer satisfaction measured through your NPS and your performance on the attributes you have chosen to differentiate on as a business relative to your key competitors.
Qualitative research
This type of research requires you to obtain feedback directly from your customers through short and structured interviews, (ideally, someone who is not directly involved in the customer relationship should do this).
Alternatively, you as the CEO/MD or your sales manager can collect this feedback, if sufficient safety is created in the interaction that enables your customers to be brutally honest about what is working and what needs improving. Also, you should ensure that your sales team or frontline employees have a system in place that allows them to log insights and feedback, which you will then share with the respective team/s so that they can act accordingly.
The questions used in qualitative research should be open-ended and in the spirit of getting honest feedback. Some critical questions to ask include:
- How are they doing?
- How are you doing?
- What is happening in their industry or category?
- What have they heard about your competitors?
Engaging with your customers regularly using these questions will allow you to powerfully differentiate and innovate ahead of your competitors to successfully build your business as you more effectively meet your customer’s needs. Seek guidance from your coach when putting the key questions together to include in these interviews.
How often should you undertake this exercise?
This is very dependent on the size of your business and the frequency with which your customers purchase. At a minimum, get feedback from at least four customers a month leading up to your quantitative survey every six months.
Even if you are getting similar feedback from all your customers, it is important to continue with this exercise regularly. There are often gems to be mined and something to be learnt from each customer interaction.
How GROW can help you
At GROW, we help Founders/CEOs and their leadership team running established businesses to grow their revenue and/or profit by 200 – 800% within as little as 24 months. As a group, we are passionate, growth-hungry, results-driven and focused on growing business, people and profits.
We thrive on sharing our knowledge and providing tools to better equip you and your business!
