How to Ask Clients for Feedback
No one likes feeling vulnerable.
Stepping up to the stage and asking your clients for feedback can feel more than a little soul-bearing, but it is necessary.
Why?
Quite simply, understanding the gap between the value you think you’re providing through your service and what you actually have on offer is the first step towards bridging it.
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Why Don’t My Clients Give Me Feedback?
However, first, you might have a few questions.
Why should I have to ask my clients in the first place? Wouldn’t they tell me if there was an issue?
In the grand scheme of things… no, not necessarily. Only 1 out of 26 of your customers are likely to bring up a complaint.
Remember, your clients are just as time-short as you are. Providing a critical review of your product or service isn’t at the top of their mind – especially if they have no previous connection with your brand.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t talking about “in secret”. The conversations that take place offline can be just as fundamental to your business as those taking place in public.
If one customer didn’t enjoy their time working (or shopping) with you, then they could be telling their friends and family. This negative word of mouth could be devastating.
The Best Way to Ask for Feedback from Clients
It should be your team’s priority, then, to understand the thought process of your customers and ensure they are satisfied.
Even if you have to put yourself in an awkward position, all organizations can benefit from taking the time to ask for client feedback.
If it’s positive, great! You can request it be posted as a testimonial on your social media page or receive permission to publish it on your website.
If it’s negative… use it. What have they said? Why have they said it? Where can you improve? Try to take a critical view of their words and carefully consider every aspect of your overall customer experience.
1. Determine Why You Are Asking Clients for Feedback
Before you begin, be strategic with your approach.
Clients aren’t going to willingly hand over time in their day to provide feedback, so you need to have a specific mission in mind.
- What results do you want from this exercise?
- What are you willing to offer someone as a thank you for responding to you?
- How can you accommodate the ease of their reply?
If you don’t have a clear answer to these three questions, you aren’t yet ready to ask your clients for feedback.
2. Create An Open Dialogue With Your Client to Ask for Feedback
The more emotional connection you have with your customers, the higher the likelihood they are to pay attention to what you have to say and be willing to engage with your request.
So, you need to build trust with them and spend time and attention on creating strong relationships before you ask clients for feedback.
Always facilitate an open and honest dialogue with your audience and encourage them to provide feedback at various stages of their buying journey.
How? By using an automated chatbot on your website, offering a contact form via their email, and being present on social media.
3. Ask Your Client the Right Feedback Questions
Collecting customer feedback isn’t simple.
It’s not just about understanding whether your clients are happy with the product or service they received. It can go a lot deeper than that and can really help you explore the flaws in your sales process.
Carefully consider the goal you want to achieve by asking for client feedback and edit your questions accordingly. Survey Monkey suggests:
- What can my company do to better serve your needs?
- How satisfied are you with our products/services?
- What value do we provide?
- What were your biggest challenges?
- Why did you choose us over the competition?
Be sure to collect both qualitative and quantitative data, using both to your advantage to improve your product or service.
4. Create a Survey to Ask for Client Feedback
As we mentioned earlier, your clients aren’t going to be eagerly awaiting your request for feedback.
Therefore, to encourage results, you need to create an easy, streamlined and accessible solution to collecting feedback. One that doesn’t consume hours of their time.
A simple survey can go a long way in generating informative responses and getting the exact information you need… while also being simple for your client to use.
What’s more? They help your client feel valued and demonstrate your interest in what they have to say.
5. Send a Personal “Thank You” and Follow Up with Your Client
When your clients provide feedback, recognize the sacrifice they made. They took time out of their day to help you – an accomplishment that deserves to be acknowledged.
A personalized thank you message can go a long way in building customer relationships and following up with any issues they experienced would prove effective to increase their retention.
Then, once the problem has been fixed, try to check in again after a few weeks and just make sure everything is going smoothly for them.
Why? They might consider updating their original feedback, leaving you a positive review that generates more business.
How to Ask for Client Feedback – FAQs
At the end of the day, leveraging feedback isn’t a luxury.
It can be an incredibly useful asset to your firm, helping you enhance customer experiences and gain a competitive advantage.
Therefore, putting yourself out there and connecting with past buyers is well worth your time and attention. If you need more guidance, perhaps these FAQs can help.
- How do you politely ask for client feedback?
Firstly, always use your customers’ names when approaching them. Then, be sure to use a platform they’ve mentioned as their preferred method of contact. Next, make the request and allow them time to reply. It might be useful to follow up after a week if you haven’t received anything back.
- How should I respond to negative client feedback?
You should be grateful to receive any form of client feedback. It’s good to strengthen communication. Thank your customer for their time and offer to can help fix the issue they’ve experienced. Be patient and you might successfully repair a previously damaged relationship.
- What is an example of useful customer feedback?
The best customer feedback would explore both the positives and negatives of the service you have provided, from start to finish. It would talk about what they liked, what they didn’t like, and what they think could be improved upon. This way, you can congratulate your team on a job well done while acting on someone’s suggestions.
Facilitate Feedback through Digital Adoption Platforms
Do you sell software as a service?
If so, Digital Adoption Platforms (which teach your clients how to use your system) could be key to your ability to generate effective customer feedback.
Too often, problems arise because clients simply don’t understand how to get the results they want out of your product – leading to frustration arising and negative reviews on your social platforms.
By instead streamlining their training process, you reduce the risk of them facing issues with using your interface and stop them from missing out on useful key features that you’ve spent hours developing.
This way, they can experience the value of what you have to offer and you can use feedback to aid client journeys.
Request a demonstration and learn more today.
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