How to keep track of customer feedback

Asking for feedback is one thing, tracking it and applying it is something else entirely. To help you make sense of the customer feedback process, this article explores everything you need to know about monitoring the insights your buyers share.

Before you can make the most of customer feedback, you need to know six core principles:

• Why is feedback necessary?
• Who is your target audience? 
• What do you need to ask? 
• When are the best times to ask?
• Where should you communicate with customers? 
• How will you manage and analyse the results? 

Let's take a closer look. 

Why is feedback important?

First of all, why are you interested in asking for feedback? You might have noticed a fall in sales, an influx of negative reviews, or a communication divide between staff and customers. Whatever your reason is, identify it early, write it down, and communicate it with everyone on your team. 

Without listening to the Voice of the Customer (VoC), you can’t hope to understand their wants and needs. The best way to be familiar with customer expectations is to ask for their feedback regularly and consistently. It shows what you’re doing well and what you’re not, and also highlights common pain points. You can use this to improve your Customer Experience (CX) much more effectively than by vague market research. 

On top of that, brands that engage with customer feedback are proven to have higher retention rates. It is much easier and faster to grow a business with loyal, returning customers than sales and marketing. To encourage that kind of loyalty, your processes need to be aligned with customer preferences. 

Who are you asking?

Before you can ask for feedback, you need to get a clear understanding of who your customers are, what their pain points are, and how they prefer to communicate. If you fail to take these things into account, response rates will likely be low. 

Think about the demographics of your target market, including age, location, digital ability, and core values. By considering these factors, you can demonstrate to your customers how valuable they are. As a result, they will feel understood and more inclined to buy from you again. 

What are you asking? 

Now that the premise and motivations are laid out, you can start to build a feedback survey. Questions in customer feedback surveys should follow be short, straightforward, relevant, and specific. Don’t waste the customer's time with unnecessary details or lengthy queries – stick to the point. 

Some example questions include: 

• How satisfied are you with our product? 
• How easy was it to find what you were looking for?
• How could our team have done better? 
• What challenge or problem does our business solve for you?
• What improvements would you add to our product?

These questions will cut through the noise and highlight what needs your attention most. Even negative ratings can be used for positive growth so don’t worry if you get a low score. For more question ideas, check out our list of 18 customer satisfaction questions. 

When in the customer journey will you ask?

With customer feedback, timing is everything. You don’t want to harass customers when they’re already frustrated because they aren’t likely to respond and may even abandon your brand altogether. Instead, identify points in the buyer’s journey when customers have the time and willingness to respond. For example, a customer will usually be feeling excited after purchasing a product. This is the ideal time to ask for their input on the transaction process and what drew them to buy that product. 

The timing of your survey will depend on the subject. If you need to ask about your customer service, you should ask for feedback immediately after a customer has had a customer service interaction. If you need to know about a product feature, follow up with the customer a certain amount of time after they bought it so that they’ve had time to use and enjoy it. 

Where will you communicate with customers?

Now that you know when, why, and what to ask, you must choose a channel to distribute your survey. With customer feedback, it is best practice to use an omnichannel approach with a few different communication options. This way, customers can respond in a way that suits them most. 

Communication channels could include email, QR codes, social media, live chat, or your app. With Review Tui, you can use campaign links to conveniently share surveys across whichever platform you choose. 

How are you managing the customer feedback data?  

So you’ve built a survey, chosen your questions, sent it to the customer, and now received their response. At this point, the data can often end up lost or forgotten. To avoid it all going to waste, you need a customer feedback management system (CFM). 

A CFM platform is your all-in-one tool for building surveys, organising responses, analysing data, and automating the entire feedback process. At Review Tui, we strive to make customer feedback as convenient and effective as possible. Our platform turns feedback into practical strategies, tangible results, and superior customer experiences for everyone. 

The software is equipped with: 

• A user-friendly survey creator
• Reporting in real-time
• Trackable campaign links
• Integration with the Hubspot CRM
• An easy-to-use interface 

For helpful advice and practical tips, download our step-by-step guide to customer feedback. You’ll find everything you need to develop a winning strategy from survey questions to the best metrics in the industry. 

If you’re interested in the Review Tui software, sign up for the launch later this year.