How to Nicely Ask Feedback from Customers

Feedback is an important resource that many businesses have to learn to take advantage of. Feedback is a great way for businesses to assess their processes. Through it, a business can easily hear out their customers’ concerns and know whether they are truly making them happy or not.

Most businesses have utilized different ways of gathering feedback, whether it comes in the form of traditional handwritten surveys or the integration of WordPress survey plugins on their websites. These different methods ensure that a certain business can widen their reach. But it’s not just about asking the most number of people nor is it about the length of your survey, for what really matter is the response rate of your customers.

You have to make sure that the customers you reach will be approached in a way that would make them feel motivated to complete the survey. Moreover, you have to maximize the number of people that do respond to your surveys; and you can do this by learning how to “nicely” ask for feedback from your customers.

 

Determine the Purpose of the Survey

If you want to come across as a business that cares and is invested into the improvement of their operations, then show it through your surveys. It can show in the questions that you ask, whether the information they share will be relevant and if it can truly assist the business to improve.

• Formulate a Theme for Your Survey – Determine what your business needs to know or what exactly are the points of improvement you feel you want to tackle. Use this as the core of your survey; formulate questions that revolve around the same idea. This will help you attack every detail of what you need to know and can help you get a clearer picture.
• Keep it Brief – Keep the survey simple and sweet, you don’t want to lose the interest of your customers. They will lose interest if they see that it will take too much of their time. Also, by keeping your survey short and sweet, you remove the risk of steering off topic and stay within the purpose of the survey.
• Specific Questions – Try to avoid vague questions, these questions make your survey seem generic and impersonal. This will send your customers the impression that the survey is more of a task than a relevant tool. This will also make the customers feel that the questions are well-thought-out and that you do have plans to improve your brand.

Be Less Generic and More Personal

When formulating your survey, remember to create it with your audience in mind. This is not just a means of collecting data, it is also a means of communicating and conversing with your customers. Try to be more personal, not by voice but by the questions you ask. Determine the issues that customers find important and relevant and focus on those. All of these will show your customers that you are invested in them.

• Target Properly – Determine who your target audience is and cater to them directly. Ask questions and tackle issues that they clearly care about. Give them the sense that they are your priority and the reason that you are collecting data and information from them is because they will benefit most from them.
• Ask Open Ended Questions – By asking open ended questions you can gather more detailed answers and get complete information. Furthermore, your survey will look less like a test and more of a conversation. This could help you build better relationships with your current clientele.

State Your Customer’s Importance

In any survey you send to your customers, state how important their insights are on the matter. Make them feel like they have a stake in the business and that they are truly involved in your processes. Also, don’t forget to thank them for their response and assure them that their response will not be taken lightly and that you will deliver on the services that you promised. These are not just empty statements but a mindset you should adopt; always believe that your customers are your greatest resource. This will also help you exhibit a form of transparency that many value. This will not only help you plan ahead, but also keep your current customers satisfied.

 

It’s not just about the information you gather but how you plan to apply them. Be sure that all the information you gather is not wasted and let it be a heavy determinant of what your next steps are. In the end, it is how you deliver and plan with the information at hand that truly makes the difference. You can set yourself apart from other companies and businesses by showing that these customers are not just sales or numbers. These customers are as important as any asset you have, because it is their behavior that will determine whether your business thrives or falls.