Importance of Customer Feedback [ Definition, Tips ]

Customers are the life blood of any organization. They are what most organizations aim to attract so as to have them interested in their products by any means possible. Some examples of these methods are: to give customers incentives and bonuses.

The most common way of gaining more customers is through the use of customer feedback forms to listen to the demands of the customer, as well as their concerns to be able to further influence the customers into purchasing your organization’s products and services.

Feedback forms are always needed by any organization not only as a means of gaining customer feedback, but also as a means of gathering information about the current happenings of the area around you. This can be done by simply redirecting the target of the feedback form from a customer feedback to a new more direct target.

Why is Customer Feedback Important?

Customer feedback is important to most organizations, because of the fact that they are an excellent source of information for the organization to work on, or develop even more effective means of marketing their products to their targeted market information. By using information such as the latest trending topics and designs, ways on how to provide better services to the customers and etc, the company is able to implement this information into their marketing scheme.

Customer feedback forms can be considered important in the sense that they are a useful tool for gathering information about a person’s or customer’s preferences, and what they like in order to determine how to adjust their marketing strategy accordingly. Requesting customer feedback does not require you to submit a feedback form request to your customers, however, the information gathered can provide your organization with other benefits as well, such as:

• It shows the customers that you are interested in their thoughts and opinions which would motivate them to pay more attention to your organization’s products or services because of your organization’s good customer service.  This would also lead to having the customers stay loyal to your organization for a longer period of time solely because your organization is showing that they do care about the opinions of the customers.

• Customer feedback aside, by allowing you to gather information they also can be used as a means of grading your customer’s satisfaction with your company. In other words, a customer feedback form can double as a customer satisfaction form. This can prove beneficial to the organization in the sense that they can gather two separate sets of information that each have its own beneficial function to the organization.

What is the Difference Between Customer Feedback and Customer Complaints?

Now, most organizations tend to mix up or misinterpret that a customer feedback is a type of customer complaint, but the truth of the matter is that a customer feedback is quite different from a customer complaint. The reason most organizations assume that a customer feedback and a customer complaint are the same, is because of the fact that both the customer feedback and customer complaints are directed at issues with the company.

However, here are some reasons why a customer feedback and customer complaint are quite different:

• A customer feedback may contain some issues about the organization, but is not intended as something negative. Rather, this is intended to be received in a way to provide a constructive criticism to the organization in the hopes of making the organization perform better and improve upon those issues. On the other hand, a customer complaint contains issues about the organization that has been identified as inappropriate or offensive in a certain way, and will often require the organization to remove or alter the subject of complaint in a specific way to handle the complaint.

• A customer feedback does not mean your organization is doing something wrong, rather, it shows that you have customer loyalty on your side, which is something most organizations strive to sustain. A customer complaint is, as the name suggests, a complaint which means that the customer shows no actual interest in your organization other than the fact that your organization has done something that they deem offensive.

• A customer feedback is also a means of learning and understanding both the organization and the customer’s preferences, while a customer complaint is used simply as a means of identifying a topic of argument.

What are Customer Complaints?

A customer complaint is something most organizations dread to receive, because it would typically mean that they have done something incorrectly and is often a signal to remove or remake a certain part of the organization’s structure or strategy or even the organization itself.

This is because a customer complaint is typically backed by a certain amount of information or evidence that would support the reason for the complaint and in some occasions, consists of a means of removing the complaint by agreeing to a compromise.

Customer complaint forms are easy to use, but must be taken seriously because even a single complaint would typically destroy the image of the organization in the eyes of the general public, and will often lead to more accusations if not handled properly. That is why when submitting a complaint form, the person should submit a notice of complaint first in order to avoid damaging the image of the company.

Tips on Dealing With Customer Feedback

Requesting customer feedback is indeed a great way of showing that you value your customers, as well as their opinions about your organization. It will also often be a great way to attract more customers, since your current customer relay their thoughts about your organization to other friends and potential customers. So now, it would only make sense to know how to deal with the customer feedback you receive from your customers:

• Take the time to personally read the customer feedback forms, because they will often time consist of information that would allow you to improve your company.

• Understand that not all feedback forms will contain unique information, each one may have different, but similar information which will allow you to determine what course of action you should take to modify your company.