Ways to Collect Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is one of the most useful tools for a brand to improve areas of dissatisfaction if there are any. Not only that, it can help you get to know your audience better and you can see what your brand is doing right too. It can strengthen your brand reputation as one who cares about its audience and sees them as more than just a paycheck. Here are a few of our top choices for collecting customer feedback.

1.     Surveys with incentives: these are a great tool and entice people to take them to receive something in return for their time.  

2.     Net Promoter Score (NPS): this keeps it short and simple for your audience. It will ask a single question, such as, “How like are you to recommend our brand to a friend or colleague?” The answer is a scale of 0-10. Zero is not at all and 10 is definitely. Those that rate you high should be asked for reviews, testimonials, etc. if they’re interested.

3.     Emails: check in with customers on a regular basis. Email marketing is a great way to do this. Some tools allow you to create small surveys within MailChimp to gather information about certain brand topics.

4.     Social media: read comments and see what people are saying about your brand.

5.     Interviews IRL: a lot can be missed with just online feedback. Body language is nonexistent behind a keyboard so it’s important to engage with some customers in person. Read their body language and the tone of their voice. These can tell you a lot but make sure you ask the right questions to get the information you need. The more specific the better.

6.     Website Live Chatbot: collect information from the live chatbot on your website. Have them ask a question when your customers come to your brand website landing page.

Finding out what your audience really wants from you and how they currently perceive your brand should be your top priority. Happy clients equal happy revenue streams. Humanizing your brand to audience connection with strengthen your relationship.

Customer Retention Strategies

Almost 65% of a business comes from repeat customers. That’s a big chunk of revenue. It’s also cheaper to retain customers than it is to get new ones. Customer satisfaction is greatly linked to retention numbers but there are some strategies to consider on top of this.

1.     Offer a loyalty program. I don’t know about you but we love loyalty programs! We love those little stamp cards to fill up so we can get something for free. This may not be the type of service that your brand can offer but think of some fun ways to start a loyalty program for your die-hard customers. They’ll appreciate being appreciated and WOM will increase even more.

2.     Build trust. We’ll say it again for those in the back. UGC builds trust with your audience. This will begin a good relationship with them that can be fostered for a lifetime.

3.     Personalize their experience. Use data to understand where they are on social media. Shout them out personally. Answer their messages and tags directly. No one wants to get a cookie cutter bounce back response.

4.     Ask for their feedback. I personally always fill out the little survey for a chance to win something. Sometimes I actually just do it because I had a not so great experience in hopes that someone will actually take it seriously. I do this more for the brands that I love.

5.     Referral programs. Offer incentives for referrals. Again, who doesn’t like to get something for free. All they have to do is put in a little work and share with family and friends. Most will go the extra mile to try to help you to help themselves. This is a BIG one. Your brand will expand while offering a loyalty to those that are already your customers.

There are so many ways to improve customer retention rates. These are but a few but it’s a good place to get started. A happy audience is crucial. Happy audience means word of mouth referrals will increase and so will your reputation and revenue.

Customer Acquisition Guide

If you’re in the business industry we’re sure you’ve heard of customer acquisition but just in case you might be a newer start up let us clarify it for you. It is the process of finding and guiding customer to buy from your business in a way that is measurable and repeatable. This happens in 6 stages: awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation and finally purchase. Awareness and interest fall under the umbrella of leads. Consideration, intent and evaluation fall under prospect. Those who purchase are then your customers. To get started you need to calculate your customer acquisition cost (CAC). This is done by dividing the total cost of marketing spend by the number of new customers attained. There are certain industry averages that you can find on any Google search to get an idea of what yours should be. You must take steps before you get started to understand what your ideal customer is. If you don’t know ask yourself these questions. What you do customers accomplish with your service? What are their demographics? What benefit(s) does your product/service offer? Where do your customers source their information from? (This question will help you decide which channels your marketing strategies will be focused on.) Why would they not buy your product? When does the ideal customer make purchases? Now that you have an idea of how to identify your target market you must identify your business goals and decide which strategies you can use to obtain new customers. Here is a short list of some types of strategies you can consider.

1.     Influencer advertising/marketing

2.     Content marketing. UGC (sourced content) marketing/advertising

3.     Social media advertising/marketing

4.     Email marketing

5.     SEO

6.     Traditional paid advertising

7.     Referral programs

This quick guide is a way to help you get started with your customer acquisition for your business but isn’t a fully comprehensive guide. It’s important that your brand do the research in order to decide what the best plan may be. Once you have a strategy and have implemented it we’re sure you will get the results desired. However, getting new customers is only half of the battle. Keeping them is the other half. Customer retention is just as important. We will write another article in the near future on ways to ensure that once you have grabbed your audience’s attention, you keep them.