Stephanie Donelson

As marketers, it’s our job to know our audiences. Hell, we even make buyer personas based on them to make sure our marketing messages and formats work for them!

But, we need to make sure our buyer personas and ideas about what our audience wants are true. We need to have data that backs our assumptions and the best way to collect that data is to go to the source!

Getting customer feedback can ensure that you’re on target with what they want, what they need, and how you can better serve them with your content or marketing materials. Customer feedback offers real insight into what’s working well and what needs to be improved or axed. 

Requesting customer feedback can be scary as you know people will share the good, bad, and the ugly, or they might not even participate which kills the whole plan. 

Let’s cover five different ways to request customer feedback so you can create content they’ll love!

1. Have customer check-ins

Many companies are adopting Customer Success roles where these people solely focus on talking to customers and figuring out what they love and hate about the company they’re working with. 

These check-ins can be by phone or email conversations where the customer success rep tries to understand how the customer is feeling, what goals they’re working toward, and if there are any obstacles in their path.

This data needs to shared with the appropriate teams to find ways to help the customers achieve success. Customers should also be thanked for their time and get information on how their feedback is being used to make improvements.

2. Send a survey

We all get them and we all know how to fill them out. A survey is a great starting point to soliciting feedback from your customers.

How should you send surveys?

• Email: Send out a survey and let customers reply at their leisure. Email surveys can be triggered after an event, a website action, a certain time, or even just a semi-regular invitation to provide feedback. Most people expect surveys they get in their inbox to be a bit more in-depth and time intensive. 
• Abandoned cart emails: Yes, this one gets its own mention as it’ll help you quickly understand why someone didn’t complete their transaction and get more intel on what you can improve on your website or shopping cart process. 
• Post-activity: After completing a transaction, downloading something, or logging out of a system, direct them to a page that asks only a few questions. Progressive does a great job of using post-activity surveys as it doesn’t interrupt what I came to do and my experience is fresh.
• Pop-up: Have a pop-up that asks if they could take a quick survey
• Post-call: We’ve all heard the, “please stay on the line after the call…” and many customers will stay on the line to answer a few quick questions. 

3. Host a Q&A

Sometimes customers don’t want to share feedback as they’re worried it’ll make them look like they don’t know what they’re doing but will gladly speak up when they hear others’ questions.

Host a town hall, live Q&A session, or webinar where customers can run the show and ask for help with their pain points.

4. Talk to your customer support team

Who better to help you craft the right survey questions or know how what feedback the company is getting than the people who support the customers?

Interview customer support reps to learn about common problems, FAQs, or what customers need additional help with. Not only is this a great way to learn more about your customers, it can help identify content gaps or opportunities for more technical how-to content, which can help alleviate some of the stress off the customer support team. A win-win for everyone!

5. Check social media

Social media is a treasure trove of customer feedback! Set up Google Alerts for mentions of your brand or dive deep by using social media networks’ search functions.

Many companies even have dedicated customer support reps on social media, and you should be reviewing conversations with those accounts to better understand your customers and their challenges.

Social media can help you understand how they feel about you, how they talk about you, what they like and dislike about your brand or product, and how you compare to the competition. This qualitative data is wonderful for knowing how to speak to your customers better.

How do you collect customer feedback? Tell me your methods in the comments below or on Twitter!