How to request customer feedback
Most of us refer to user feedback regularly to guide our purchasing decisions. We find a product or service online, check the ratings, read a few reviews and proceed with confidence (or move on).
Unfortunately, many businesses don’t take advantage of feedback forums – even when they don’t cost a cent. Below are four simple tips on requesting customer feedback:
- Use existing forums if they fit your product/service. If you’re not sure how, visit the product or service site and look for information.
- If a suitable forum doesn’t exist, create your own. There are many options available to you!
- Promote your method for feedback. Once you have a forum, make sure people know about it. Include it on your invoice, website, email signature… Share testomonials to drive future sales.
- Respond to feedback. If a customer provides negative feedback, attempt to resolve the issue and respond (in the forum) so others know you’ve resolved the issue.
In case you need some inspiration, here are just a few feedback forum examples:
- Home contractors – Homestars allows homeowners to share reviews on contractors.
- Travel – Trip Advisor features reviews and advice on hotels, resorts, flights, holiday rentals, holiday packages, travel guides, and lots more.
- Restaurants – Yelp and Zomato share restaurant reviews.
- Products – Amazon, Canadian Tire and Well.ca provide user feedback on specific products.
- Entertainment – iTunes and Rotten Tomatoes encourage people to share their views on music and movies.
- Pinterest – You might not immediately think of Pinterest as a word of mouth marketing tool, until you see how it can be used. Pinterest is especially popular with women (who also happen to make most of the household purchases) and many companies are adding “Pin it” buttons to their sites with great success. Just a few examples you might recognize are Amazon, Etsy and Well.ca.
