Why customer feedback is the key to success
Whether your customers are consumers or fellow businesses, no businesses function without them. Hence why customer satisfaction is so important and hence why being customer-focused is one of our core values at Dice. But even when you focus on your customers, how do you know they’re happy?
Managing customer satisfaction
You may feel as though you’re doing everything possible to impress your customers and are treating them like kings and queens but as they say, there’s always two sides to every story. It’s not enough to tick the customer service box simply based on what you believe; you must hear directly from your clients to fully appreciate whether or not your customer satisfaction strategies are working. To really understand the requirements of your customers, talk to them and evaluate their responses. Not only can this help with innovation and new opportunities, but it also helps to build a loyal customer base as clients who feel listened to, valued and understood are more likely to come back with repeat business.
The importance of listening
Customer feedback is important for so many different reasons. It helps with innovation, service/product development, marketing, business development, and operations. Arguably most importantly, customer feedback can highlight some missed opportunities. While you may think you’re doing everything possible, there may even be some easy wins to be had that you might not spot from the inside. It also helps to ensure that your customers are who you think they are. When it comes to marketing and positioning your company, you may believe that you’re working to attract a certain kind of client. But your actual client base may be looking for something completely different to that or your service or product may be slightly off the mark. Taking customer feedback into account at every step of the way ensures that your branding, marketing and business offering is in line with what your clients want, making customer satisfaction all the more likely.
Collecting customer feedback
When it comes to actually collecting feedback, where do you start? Well, the easiest way is to simply ask your clients or customers for their opinion, whether that’s through a survey or direct communication. Reaching out to customers in this way can be more personal, but people can often feel like they’re less able to be honest about their feedback when put on the spot. Alternatively, customer feedback can be collected through reviews using platforms such as Google, TrustPilot and Feefo. These reviews are public so glowing ones can help to positively market your company to other prospective clients. However, negative ones can naturally have the opposite effect. For a full picture of your customer satisfaction, it’s best to collect feedback through both public and private means. Knowledge is power and the more you have, the better service you’ll be able to offer your clients. It’s all about listening and taking action.