How to ask for customer feedback: Best practices & tips

Customer feedback is essential for continuous improvement and enhancing the customer experience. You likely already recognize its importance, but collecting meaningful feedback can be challenging due to low response rates and biased opinions. If you want customers to provide valuable feedback, you must make them genuinely want to do so — and there’s a few things you need to do in order to make that happen. Read on to discover effective strategies for soliciting customer feedback, including best practices and our hottest tips to optimize your approach. 

How to ask for customer feedback

Identify your objectives

Before you begin gathering customer feedback, it's essential to pinpoint why you’re collecting feedback in the first place. What are you planning to do with that feedback once you have it?. Are you looking to gauge customer satisfaction, understand product usability, or assess service quality? Clarifying your objectives will help you craft precise questions that yield actionable insights.

Common customer experience (CX) metrics can guide your objectives. For instance, net promoter score (NPS) measures customer loyalty, customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores gauge satisfaction with specific interactions, and customer effort Score (CES) evaluates the ease of customer interactions. For a deeper dive into these metrics, check out: Your guide to customer experience metrics.

Aligning your feedback objectives with your broader business goals and strategies is crucial. This ensures that the feedback you collect is not only informative but also actionable, enabling your team to make data-driven decisions that drive improvement and growth. 

Choose the right channel

Selecting the appropriate channel for collecting customer feedback is crucial as it directly impacts response rates and the quality of insights obtained. Different channels cater to varying customer preferences and behaviors, ensuring you reach your audience effectively.

Channels to consider: 

• Online surveys
• Email surveys
• Social media
• Website pop-ups
• In-app feedback
• Live chat
• Customer interviews
• Focus groups
• SMS/text messages
• Phone calls
• Review and rating platforms
• Post-purchase feedback requests
• Community forums

Discover effective feedback collection examples in The 10 best examples of proactive customer feedback for inspiration on leveraging different channels.

Craft clear and concise questions

When asking for customer feedback, it's crucial to tailor your questions to be specific to your objectives. Clear and concise questions help you avoid ambiguity and gather precise answers. 

To ensure that your questions are clear and concise:

• Tailor to objectives: Ensure each question aligns with what you want to learn, such as customer satisfaction, product usability, or service quality.
  
  
• Avoid ambiguity: Use straightforward language to prevent misunderstandings.
  
  
• Mix question types: Combine open-ended questions for detailed insights and closed-ended questions for quantifiable data.

Different question types you can use are:

• Rating scale questions: Ask customers to rate their experience on a scale (e.g., 1 to 10).
  
  
• Likert scale questions: Use statements with a range of agreement levels (e.g., strongly agree to strongly disagree).
  
  
• Multiple choice questions: Offer predefined answer options for quick responses.
  
  
• Ranking questions: Ask customers to rank items based on preference or importance.
  
  
• Demographic questions: Gather information about your customers' background (e.g., age, gender, location).
  
  
• Follow-up questions: Provide deeper insights by asking for more details based on previous answers.
  
  
• Behavioral questions: Understand customer actions and habits related to your product or service.

Incentivize participation

Encouraging customer participation in feedback collection can significantly impact response rates and the quality of insights gathered. 

Consider these strategies to incentivize customers effectively:

• Offer tangible incentives: Providing tangible rewards such as discounts, coupons, or entries into a prize draw can motivate customers to share their feedback.
  
  
• Highlight contribution to improvement: Communicate how customer feedback directly contributes to improvements in products, services, or overall customer experience. This approach not only makes customers feel valued but also encourages more meaningful contributions.

Here are examples of companies successfully implementing these strategies:

• Starbucks: Offers customers discounts on future purchases in exchange for completing surveys, encouraging frequent feedback and enhancing customer engagement.
  
  
• Amazon: Incorporates customer feedback into product development and service enhancements, demonstrating a commitment to improving customer experience based on user input.

Follow-up

Following up with customers after collecting their feedback is a crucial step in the feedback process. "Closing the loop" shows customers that their opinions are valued and future-proofs your experience for the next customers in line. 

• Acknowledge feedback: Let customers know their feedback has been received and appreciated. This simple act can significantly enhance customer trust and engagement.
  
  
• Respond to all feedback types: Address positive, negative, and neutral feedback to show that you value all opinions. Each type of feedback offers unique insights and opportunities for improvement.

For more detailed guidance on closing the loop, check out: Customer feedback loop | Definition, examples, tips.

Implement changes and communicate

Once you've gathered and analyzed feedback, and followed up with customers, the next step is to implement changes based on the insights gained. Here’s how to do it effectively:

• Prioritize actions: Focus on changes that will have the most significant impact on customer satisfaction and align with your business goals.
  
  
• Involve your team: Ensure all relevant departments are informed and involved in the implementation process. Collaboration is key to making effective changes.
  
  
• Monitor progress: Continuously track the impact of the changes to ensure they are delivering the desired improvements.

Communicate improvements

Letting your customers know about the improvements made based on their feedback enhances their experience and fosters loyalty. Be sure to focus on: 

• Transparency: Be open about the changes you are making and why.
  
  
• Regular updates: Keep customers informed with regular updates on the progress and impact of the changes.
  
  
• Celebrate successes: Share success stories and positive outcomes resulting from customer feedback to highlight the value of their input.

5 best practice tips to increase response rates 

Once you’ve started collecting feedback from your customers, it’s important to monitor and try to improve your response rates. Here are five best practice tips to help you achieve higher response rates:

1. Keep surveys short and focused

Surveys that are concise and to the point tend to have higher completion rates. The average completion rate decreases as the number of questions increases, so keep your surveys short to maintain engagement. For more info, check out the average completion rate for surveys with various questions.

2. Segment your audience

By segmenting your audience, you can tailor your surveys to specific customer groups, making the questions more relevant and increasing the likelihood of responses. Personalized surveys show customers that their unique perspectives are valued.

3. Choose the right time

Timing is crucial when it comes to collecting feedback. Reach out to customers when they are most likely to respond, such as shortly after a purchase or service interaction. 

4. Utilize Multiple Channels

Using multiple channels to request feedback increases your chances of reaching customers in their preferred medium. Combine email surveys, website pop-ups, in-app feedback, and social media to maximize your reach and response rates.

5. Assure Confidentiality

Assuring customers that their responses will be confidential encourages more honest and candid feedback. Clearly communicate how their information will be used and the measures taken to protect their privacy.

Why do customers avoid leaving feedback? 

Understanding why customers might avoid or be resistant to leaving feedback is crucial for addressing the problem and improving your feedback strategy. 

Time constraints

Customers often feel they don't have enough time to complete a survey or provide feedback. Keeping surveys short and to the point can help mitigate this issue.

Perceived lack of impact

If customers believe their feedback won't lead to any changes or improvements, they may feel it's not worth the effort. Communicating how their feedback has been used in the past can encourage more participation.

Privacy concerns

Customers might be hesitant to share their opinions if they are worried about how their information will be used. Assuring confidentiality and clearly explaining how their data will be protected can help alleviate these concerns.

Inconvenience

If the process of providing feedback is cumbersome or complicated, customers are less likely to participate. Make the feedback process as seamless and convenient as possible.

Lack of incentive

Offering an incentive can motivate customers to provide feedback. Even small rewards, such as discounts or entry into a prize draw, can significantly boost response rates.

Indifference or satisfaction

Customers who are indifferent or completely satisfied may not feel compelled to leave feedback. Encouraging all types of feedback, not just from those with complaints, can help gather more comprehensive insights.

For more info, check out: 10 common mistakes to avoid when seeking customer feedback. 

How can AskNicely help? 

Discover how AskNicely can streamline your feedback management and customer experience enhancement efforts. Trusted by leading organizations worldwide, AskNicely offers robust features designed to elevate your customer feedback strategy.

• Collect: Utilize AskNicely's CX surveys to send customizable email, web, or SMS surveys, ensuring you capture valuable insights directly from your customers.
  
  
• Assess: Beyond collecting feedback, AskNicely's feedback analytics empower you
  with mission control to measure and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Leverage features like AI theme analysis to identify trends and actionable insights across locations and branches.
  
  
• Respond: Manage customer feedback effectively with AskNicely's built-in response, escalation, and workflow management tools, ensuring timely and personalized responses to customer input through customer feedback management.
  
  
• Transform: Empower frontline teams with real-time CSAT scores and actionable insights to enhance customer service through AskNicely's employee activation features, fostering a customer-centric culture and driving continuous improvement.

Discover the best way to ask customers for feedback here.