Why You Need to Be Collecting Customer Feedback

Everything you do in your business is about the clients.  Everything you create is either to solve their problems or deliver on their needs. 

Your business revolves around your clients … and their experiences.  Every day whether you realize it or not, your actions are having a significant effect on your clients.  But are you providing a positive experience?  

The path to positive experiences for your clients starts the minute they land on your website, landing page, or social media post.  And it extends well beyond the moment they fork or the cash to become your client! 

Turning visitors into raving fans is a never-ending commitment.  In other words, customer service is the new marketing. 

The Importance of Feedback Surveys

You can’t effectively grow or scale your business without taking into account the experiences of your clients. Their opinions and feedback are the two most important factors needed to validate your decisions.  

Should you add more content to your program?
Should you raise, or lower, the price of your tiny offer? 

Gauging your clients’ experience based on their feedback is how you will shape your customer journey.

If you don’t know what your clients are thinking, you have a much lower chance of retaining, wowing, and persuading them to make future purchases.

Without question, the voice of the client is a critical component to designing your success. So, why don’t we involve them more?

Most often it’s because we don’t know-how.

How do you know if the customer is satisfied? Or worse, unhappy. 
How do you weigh the options for creating new products or features?
Is what your client expects and what you deliver in line?

Summer Bock [look her up she’s pretty frickin awesome] once said to me if you’re a business owner asking yourself why your products aren’t selling, what you should be asking yourself is; did I build something they even want.  

Kind of a mind-blowing question isn’t it.  Did you build something your target market even wants? 

To know the answer, you must go to the source.  So, let’s dig into client satisfaction surveys and see if we can come up with an easy and fun way for you to poll your audience.

We’ll cover:

• Client Feedback Questions
• Best Practices Feedback Surveys
• And we’ll throw in some examples along the way

Client Feedback Questions

If you want to collect feedback from your clients, then you have to ask them the right questions the right way. It’s not your client’s job to provide you with a roadmap to success, but most people do love to share their opinions.  Your job is to create a fun and easy way for them to share their thoughts while providing you constructive criticism. 

Create simple yet thought-provoking questions that engage the participants’ desire to be heard. 

Let’s break down the types of questions that will help you build your feedback survey. 

Remember; you don’t want to use all the questions.  Just pick 2-3 of the most relevant from each section.

Usage

You might think you have the greatest widget in the world but if your buyers aren’t using it and you don’t know that. it’s going to be a lot more difficult to decide what widget 2.0 should look like. 

Finding out how satisfied your buyers are with your product or service helps you steer your marketing and product development.

Here are some questions that can help uncover usage:

• How long have you been using the product?
• Did you consider any other products before purchasing ours? 
• How often do you use the product?
• Does the product help you achieve your goals?
• What is your favorite feature of the product service?
• What would you change if you could?
• Which feature do you use most often?
• Is there anything you don’t like about the product?
• If you could add one new feature, what would it be and why?

Remember; you don’t want to use all the questions.  Just pick 2-3 of the most relevant from each section.

Demographics

Demographics are essential to marketing because they make it easier for you to segment your list. Marketing and sales teams can use the information you gather to target new leads who mirror your clients, making them more likely to convert.

Demographic questions are more personal, so you’ll want to make sure the tone is proactive and/or inclusive.  They are also rarely required, so make sure your clients can skip anything they might feel uncomfortable sharing. Your goal is to gain honest info, not alienate your client. 

Here are some questions to help you acquire demographics:

• Age 
• Location 
• Gender identity 
• Employment status 
• Annual household income
• Job title
• Industry 
• Marital status
• # of Children
• Education level

Habits and Behaviors

You can go deeper into demographics by asking about your client’s habits, behaviors, and tendencies. These questions are less about who your clients are, and more about why they do what they do.

These questions are commonly referred to as Psychographics.  These questions may seem invasive, but they are an extremely valuable piece of the information pie that is your client.  They give you a look into the reasoning behind your client’s buying habits. 

These questions are super useful in surveys because the answers generally tell you how you can serve your clients better.

Here are some examples of psychographic questions:  

• Which do you like better, shopping on your phone or laptop?
• What is your most important priority when [something related to your industry]?

Example: if you’re a health coach, you could ask, “What is your most important priority when looking for a health coach?”

• What is your biggest roadblock when [something related to your product]?

Example: “What is your biggest roadblock when trying to lose weight?”

• How much time do you spend on social media?
  note: choose a specific platform if planning to run ads 
• How do you feel about [Product]?

Example:  if you sell supplements you might ask, “How do you feel about gummies vs. capsules?”

• What do you dislike about [product type]?
• How many hours per day do you spend [insert something that relates to your product]?

Example: if you sell protein shakes, you might ask, “How shakes do you drink per day?”

Satisfaction Scoring

These are my favorite types of questions because they are quantifiable, unlike the open-ended style of Psychographics.  Your client likely isn’t going around using your product and mentally calculating a score, so you’ll have to open the door for this to happen in a positive way.  Be direct and ask clients how they feel about specific details.

But before you do, you’ll have to establish how you want to quantify the answers.  Developing a satisfaction scale is a great way to create a consistent approach to quantifying subjective feedback.

Here are some samples:

• Rating scale. Think “1 to 5” or “1 to 10”.  Make it clear that 1 means the client is extremely unsatisfied and 5 means the client is very satisfied.

Example: On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your coaching sessions?”

• Descriptive scale.  A shortlist of responses to choose from, ranging from “very unsatisfied” to “very satisfied.”

Example: How likely are you to recommend Transformation Coaching to others?”

• Picture scale.  These add a bit of fun to your survey.  Use happy, sad, and indifferent emojis.

Example: How hard did you find intermittent fasting?”

More examples that might work:

• Rate your satisfaction with our team in resolving your issue.
• Did you feel that our team answered your questions promptly?
• Do you agree or disagree that your issue was resolved quickly?
• How likely are you to purchase again from us?
• How likely are you to visit our website in the future?

 

Open-Text

I have a love/hate with open text questions.  These are the “tale of woe” boxes.  A seemingly limitless space where people can tell you their life story.   They are highly effective in giving people a place to share their feelings, good or bad.    While not my favorite, due to their limitations regarding quantifiability, I have to acknowledge they are extremely valuable from the customer’s perspective. 

They can definitely be time-consuming to analyze, but they encourage the client to be honest and provide the freedom to address any topic. 

Here are examples of open-text questions: 

• In your own words, describe how you feel about [company or product].
• How can we improve your overall experience? 
• What’s working for you? Why?
• Is there anything we can do better? 
• How can we help support your goals more effectively?
• How can we improve your experience with our website or portal?
• Why did you choose our product over a competitor’s?
• What would be one word you would use to describe [company] Why?
• Do you have any additional feedback for us?

 

Retention

The last section of your survey should include questions that help you’re your client to the next step of the process. These questions help you to follow up with the person in the future.

You may want to follow up with the same person in the future.  There are a few ways to phrase these questions: 

• Can I/we contact you to follow up on your responses?
• Would you be willing to take this survey again in the future?
• Would you be open to meeting via zoom/chat to discuss your answers?
• Would you be open to discussing upgrade options for your product?
• Can we send you a list of useful tips for getting the most out of your product?

Measuring customer satisfaction can be tricky to manage but it’s well worth it.  Asking effective questions can reward you with extremely valuable customer insights — and the questions we’ve listed above are a great head start.

Best Practices for Creating Feedback Surveys

Designing forms of any kind takes practice and attention to detail, but feedback surveys take just a bit more.  The good news is we have a few best practices that will help you increase response rates and get that much-needed feedback from your clients.

Choose the right survey tool for the job 

There are a lot of tools to choose from, so take into consideration the level of complexity you’ll have in your form.  Choose a tool that allows you to ask different types of questions and examines metrics such as response rates.

 

For basic questions, your CRM probably has a form builder that will do the job.  The onboard forms in Keap for example integrate right into your marketing funnel making it an excellent choice.  If you want a lot of bells and whistles, we have some recommendations on our Resources We Love page. 

 

Keep it Simple 

No one enjoys spending a lot of time answering questions, so be sure to ask short, but relevant, questions.  

Ask for feedback at the right time

Take steps to ensure you’re placing your surveys in the appropriate place in your client’s journey. It wouldn’t make sense to ask for feedback from someone who has just started their weight loss program — nor would it make sense to ask for feedback years after the client stopped doing business with you.

So, when should you send a feedback survey?  A good place to start is a few weeks after you’ve onboarded a client or semi-annually to measure your clients’ overall happiness with your services and team.

Always split test your surveys

Split testing is a great way to gauge the effectiveness of your survey.  Create two versions of the survey using only minor changes.  Some things to consider changing are:

• the order of the questions
• the number of questions
• the color of the page, text, or buttons

 

Be sure to only change one thing at a time so you can track the effectiveness of the change.

Send both versions to different segments of your client list and see which one generates more responses. 

Express Gratitude

Whether it’s by giving a discount, gift card, or simply sending a card, always thank the client for their time.  Regardless of their feedback. 

Use customer feedback surveys to collect information that will create lasting and positive changes in your company. When you know how your clients feel, you can make decisions that lead to higher revenue and increased customer retention, empowering you to #keapgrowing.