Why gaining customer feedback could provide the insights you need

Gaining feedback is a great way to get others views on you, an individual, a product, policy or an organisation. Over the years, businesses have become more savvy at asking consumers what they think of their products and how they use them. It is now even easier to track buying habits and patterns to better understand how a product fairs in the market by looking at an abundance of data such as EPOS, loyalty programmes, focus groups and social media.

But how often do businesses ask their customers directly for feedback? At the end of the day, many businesses are reliant on their customers to sell their products to their consumers.  We often get caught up in pitching a new product without stopping to gather a customer’s view on it, or more generally what they think of the overall business. Gaining your customers views can provide the insight you need to shape your business, inform your decision making and influence your product roadmap. It’s also essential for measuring customer satisfaction among your current customers.

Getting feedback can be done in numerous ways, but first you need to be clear as to what you want to gain from it. For example, you could want to find out specifically what your customers think of your product range, or your personnel, or supply chain or marketing programmes. Once you have decided what area or areas you want to focus on, this should shape your approach and methodology. On line surveys are a great way to collate benchmarking scores, with scales or 1 -10 or 1 -5 ratings. Multiple choice questions also help rank preferences and viewpoints. But if you want to gain even greater insight, asking your customers directly in exploratory customer interviews can provide the extra level and clarity you need. Utilising a third party provider to conduct these interviews, could also provide a more transparent and impartial conversation, particularly if you want to gain opinions regarding your people. The provider can also do all the analysis for you, distilling the responses into actionable results.

Acting upon the findings is crucial. Determine what the responses mean, strategically, operationally and individually and create an action plan to address the problem areas and leverage the strengths.

Getting a handle on how customers view your product, support, and company is invaluable and can help set your direction. Pure Blue Ocean can help plan, conduct, and analyse customer feedback. We can also support in developing and implementing an action plan to help you get to where you need to be. If you would like to find out more please contact us on: help@pureblueocean.com