Let me ask you a fundamental question: how do you know if a service has been carried out successfully by you and that it has made the right impact? Do you know when a client decided to engage your services or buy your product they feel what you want them to feel? Was your service or purchasing your product was running smoothly without a hitch?
Do you have a special process within your business or firm to indicate if you have performed greatly or poorly?
Customer feedback is important to any business owner. Keeping track of feedback is important to progressively improve in your business. It is how reputations are built or destroyed in any competitive field.
Only by feedbacks and evaluations will you be able to see where rooms for improvements are required. Therefore improving your part of customer service and the process of building relations with your clients.
It also indicates what your customer’s expectations were and did they feel that you did a great job and they will hire you again.
The process of giving and receiving feedback is one of the most important concepts in building a business. Through the feedback process, we see ourselves as others see us. Through feedback, other people also learn how we see them.
The feedback and information I get from my clients (also from participants in my events, training and keynote presentations) tell me how my behavior affects them (receiving feedback), how they feel, and what they perceive.
Unfortunately, every day, I get an email from companies who solicit to get feedback from me as their customer, yet only a few translate that feedback into meaning.
Sadly, an even smaller fraction of these companies actually take action or use these feedback to get closer and develop real and authentic relations with me as the customer, to let me know that my voice was heard.
This is the importance of Customer Feedback in the process of building and maintaining business relationships by companies with their customers.
Customer feedback is so important because it provides to the business owners with insight that they can use to improve their business, products and/or overall customer experience.
To help you understand the significance of ‘Customer Feedback’ in the growth of your business, here are the top six reasons:
1. The Practical Way to Improve Customers Experience
If you ask me what is the primary reason you should gather customer feedback, I will with no doubt answer – improving the customer experience.
If you want to stand out from your competition and retain your customers for a longer term, make sure your client will get an amazing experience while interacting with your product or service, with your personnel, with your brand.
This experience will help to make your customers remaining loyal and ignore tempting competitive offers.
2. The Fast Way to Retain your Customers
Needless to mention that you need to find out if you customers are not happy with the product or service you are delivering before you lose their business.
The best and fastest way to achieve it is by asking for your Customer feedback. This is the best way to communicate directly with your customers, to know what they want and not to guess or assume (a mistake, unfortunately, many business owners make).
As more businesses go online, there is less of the face-to-face communication with your customers, and if you don’t have that communication you don’t understand why your customers are doing what they are doing.
I must admit that also the process itself, of asking the customer feedback, help to ensure that your customer wanting to continue doing business with you.
Isn’t it what you want?
3. The Best Way to Measure Customer Satisfaction
If you do it properly and measure your customer satisfaction it will help you track and monitor how happy (or unhappy) your customers are over time.
I assume it is obvious that receiving Customer feedback will help you measure customer satisfaction in your business. It will definitely help you determine whether your product or service meets or surpasses customer expectations.
That is a huge benefit for your company in order to be able to retain your customers and avoid loosing them to your competitors.
4. A Direct Way to Improve a Product or Service
According to our experience, the only way to guarantee you create a product or service that your customer actually want to buy is to listen to them. You want to ensure that your service or final product is something that solves a customer’s problem or fulfills a need.
Remember: If your service or product fulfills a customer need or solves a customer problem, and exceed their expectations there is a bigger chance that the demand for your service or product will be much higher.
5. The Secure Way to Make Better Business Decisions
I assume it also happened to you, you made a business mistake due to inaccurate data you had or got. This is the time realizeded the importance of accurate data and facts.
Now you understand why when we are dealing with building your business or firm, Customer Feedback is important! That is the ONLY way to know exactly how your customers really feel about the product or service you deliver. This is REAL tangible data nobody can argue with!
Do not hesitate. You should use this feedback to guide your business and marketing decisions. Learn to listen to your Customers feedback.
6. The Ideal Way to identify Your Business Ambassadors
You may heard me give a keynote or you read my e-book [Go download it HERE for FREE] where I show you how to turn your customers to become your best business ambassadors. But how do you identify these customers that are willing and will be great ambassadors to your business? After all you will need to select them.
The answer is: Customer Feedback. Let me explain.
I use a scoring methodology when receiving Customer Feedback. The higher feedback points a customer gives you, the more likely this customer willing to act as your business ambassador.
Remember: Customer that value you and your product or service willing and want to help you. The only thing you need to do, it select these customers and build stronger, mutually-beneficial relationships with them.
If you build it properly and authentically, you should be able to ask for a testimonial or referral from these customers.
Last Word.
Companies and professional firm have employed a range of techniques to listen to their customers. But while customer feedback survey data does create competitive advantage, the advantage doesn’t come from merely collecting the data, it’s how you act on feedback that really makes the difference.
If you handle it right, the dialog between you and your customers can become deeper and the lifeline of your business.
Keep in mind that customers are not especially interested in anonymity, discounts, or monetary incentives to share their ideas with you. Customers want to be heard and respected and to have their guidance incorporated into your vision and strategic plan.
To establish and maintain a healthy flow of clients to your business, the customer feedback must result in change your customers can see. Change is the most powerful currency to reward vocal and consultative customers. It will help you retain your client for a longer time!
How do you use the Customer feedback in your business? Please share with me.
“Itzik is an International Speaker, Bestselling Author, Business Mentor & Attorney-at-law. The Global Leading Authority on Business Development, Business Networking, Referrals & Relationship Capital & Founder of THE SWITCH® and THE SWITCH HUB®”
