3 things needed to get the most feedback out of your customers
A successful business knows their customers. Reviews in social channels largely represent 2% of extremes (very happy or very frustrated)
The goal is to get as much feedback from all customers, not the extremes
How do you do it? By asking the right question at the right time using the right method.
Right question
Whatever questions you ask your customers, you must be sure that you can do something about it. If the customers submit the same feedback over and over, and nothing changes, this will likely hurt you more than help you.
Some common categories for the customer feedback questions:
- Quality of service, Speed of service, Courtesy and care
- Product Selection, Price
- Cleanliness of the premises
- Functioning of the equipment (printers, vending machines, coffee machines, etc.)
- Employee satisfaction with their work or workplace
Right time
The best time to capture the feedback is the moment a customer has just interacted with your product or service. It may be when the customer opens their mail-order package, finishes their cup of coffee, walks the aisle at a store, stands at the hotel checkout desk, or walks into a business’ public restroom. According to a recent study conducted by Microsoft, the average customer attention span is 8 seconds. That study was done in the context of marketing, but it also holds true for customer feedback. Reliance on after-the-fact mail, text, or phone surveys usually capture the 2% edge cases losing everything in between.
Right method
There is really no right or wrong method. Choose which of the below two approaches best resonates with you and your goals.
- In-Depth: Now, that I have the customer’s attention, I will ask them all key questions, I want to know. I would also like to get their contact information so that I can get back to them. I know that this will limit my response volume, but I will sacrifice the response quantity for the response quality.
- On-the-go: Customers can already easily find and review my business on social channels. For the in-the-moment feedback, I want to capture the customers’ “vibe”. This must be a matter of a second (or 8 seconds). I will ask just one question appropriate to that particular location. I will make it as easy for the customers to express their feedback as it is to press a button. Plus, I make it anonymous by default to make it comfortable for the customer to be honest about their experience.
AirVote is closer to the latter (on-the-go) method. This is why we use three separate QR smileys (happy, so-so, sad) on an AirVote® question poster to cue the user that scanning a QR smiley is like a virtual “button press”. There is a place for anonymous comments for those who have something to say. Alerts on unhappy votes/comments go in real-time to the business team. Happy customers are also provided a direct link to the social to submit full reviews.
To see how businesses use AirVote, check out our gallery.
