For businesses, listening to your customers is more than just a suggestion — it is a crucial strategy for growth. To thrive and boost profitability, understanding your customers is non-negotiable.
You can do this by understanding the voice of customers (VoC) — a domain in customer research that lets you know what your buyers truly want and need.
A PWC study states that 54% of U.S. consumers believe customer experience needs improvement at most companies, and 32% will walk away even from brands they love after one bad experience. So, it’s crucial to actively listen to what consumers want.
This article will dive into practical strategies to turn valuable customer feedback into growth opportunities.
Strategies for turning the voice of customers into growth opportunities
While there are different strategies you can emulate, these five methods are key to creating growth opportunities:
1. Create customer surveys and feedback loops
To harness VoC for growth, creating customer surveys and feedback loops is the foundational step.
It lets businesses gather structured feedback systematically for a deeper understanding of customer needs and preferences. Customer surveys come in various forms, including online questionnaires, in-person interviews, and phone surveys. They provide insights into various aspects of the customer experience, such as product satisfaction, service quality, and website usability.
Let’s say you’re an e-commerce clothing retailer. You can gather feedback on product quality, shopping experience, and shipping efficiency by deploying a customer satisfaction survey. Alternatively, an in-person survey at a brick-and-mortar store may reveal shopper preferences regarding customer service.
Holger Sindbaek, the entrepreneur behind Online Solitaire, shares, “In the gaming realm, every click, every move, every pause tells a story. When I ventured into business, I approached it with the same mindset. Instead of waiting for customers to voice their concerns, I proactively sought their feedback. We set up surveys and feedback loops, not just as a formality but as a core strategy. The insights were game-changing, quite literally. They didn’t just tell us what was wrong; they illuminated paths for innovation and growth. For any business, staying ahead means staying connected. And there’s no better connection than directly tapping into the voice of your customer.”
Why you need feedback loops
They are instrumental in driving continuous improvement and let you capture insights and act upon them promptly. You can identify improvement areas and apply changes in real-time by analyzing collected feedback.
For instance, Asana sends incentivised email surveys to collect feedback to improve areas like user experience.
It also serves as a powerful tool for innovation. How?
Customers often suggest unmet needs or new features or products. So, you can employ software to track customer needs and use the insights to develop new features and product lines or cater to previously unaddressed requirements.
Plus, active customer engagement demonstrates your commitment to their satisfaction. When customers see their input leading to positive changes, it fosters trust and strengthens the customer-business relationship. It cultivates loyalty, encouraging customers to return for repeat business and even become advocates, leading to more referrals.
2. Track website behavior
Your website is a digital storefront, and just like a brick-and-mortar store, understanding how visitors behave is crucial. That begins with tracking website behaviour.
Each website visitor is a potential customer with unique preferences and expectations. As visitors browse through your store, their actions reveal their choices.
Which products do they click on the most?
What content keeps them engaged?
You can adjust your website’s content and design to cater to your customers once you understand their behavior. For instance, you must prioritize image quality and placement if visitors spend more time on product images than descriptions like SkullCandy.
The next step is to keep your customers engaged. Craft your website to align with visitors’ interests and make navigation effortless to reduce bounce rates. ASOS does this extremely well. They have headers for easy navigation and dedicated categories for quick navigation.
Here’s how you can do it too-
Ecommerce websites:
- Use a clear and intuitive menu structure with categories and subcategories for easy product discovery.
- Provide a prominent search button for customers to find products quickly by entering keywords.
- Use clear and descriptive product titles with high-quality images and detailed product descriptions.
- Give filters and sorting options to help customers refine their product searches.
- Implement a streamlined and user-friendly checkout process with minimal steps to reduce cart abandonment.
B2B websites:
- Organize your website content logically, categorizing products or services according to customer needs.
- Create a knowledge base or resource center to provide in-depth information, guides, and documentation to support customers.
- Allow easy access to customer support via chat, contact forms, or CS representatives to address detailed queries and concerns.
Tracking user behavior on your website also helps identify issues in the user journey.
Understanding where dropoffs happen lets you pinpoint improvement areas. If users often abandon the purchase process at the payment step, it could suggest issues with payment options or the clarity of instructions.
3. Check social media channels
Social media is a great place for brands to thrive. Here, your customers talk, share experiences, and shape perceptions. Every like, comment, and share holds potential for business growth.
So, you must monitor brand mentions, customer comments, and reviews. This real-time feedback provides invaluable insights into how your audience perceives your products or services. Even Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, actively responds to customer complaints on Twitter.
Responding promptly showcases your commitment to excellent customer service. This fosters loyalty, just as an attentive store staff does. Also, with e-commerce brands, a swift response to customer concerns resolves immediate issues and enhances the overall brand perception.
Social media is also a rich source of data. You can spot emerging trends and gauge consumer sentiment by analyzing conversations. For example, a luggage company can listen in on discussions about competitors to understand the bag features consumers desire.
Engagement within the online community is key to building a loyal customer base.
Finally, using positive feedback and testimonials from social media can amplify your brand’s reputation and drive growth. Positive brand mentions, stories, and posts show your customers’ satisfaction. Also, user-generated content (UGC) is an authentic form of brand recommendation, which may likely turn into conversions.
4. Keep a dedicated email inbox
Email marketing revenue may reach 17.9 billion USD worldwide by 2027.
That’s why it remains a reliable and personal mode of communication. It is a direct channel with immense potential for building relationships, addressing concerns, and driving long-term business growth.
Unlike noisy social media platforms or crowded online forums, emails create a more personal and immediate connection. So, with a dedicated email inbox, you provide customers with a direct line of communication to share their opinions, inquiries, or feedback.
One of the biggest advantages of email is the ability to address customer concerns and inquiries with speed and efficiency. A prompt and personalized response resolves immediate issues and goes a long way in enriching a customer’s overall experience.
To make it easy for customers to your email address, add it to the footer of your website. Also, make it easy to remember, like support@yourbrandname.com. However, if emails are sent to the wrong address, have a template ready to redirect them to the correct account. PayPal does this exceptionally well with a short yet effective email.
You may also keep reiterating you prioritize customer experience by sharing essential links at the end of your email as AirBnB does.
Emails also are a valuable platform for gathering feedback, suggestions, and testimonials. You can invite customers to share their thoughts and experiences, which you can use for marketing efforts. Plus, testimonials from satisfied customers act as a tool for building trust and encouraging others to engage with your business.
You can even start simple. Collect ratings via your email campaigns like Bellroy does and display them on your website or use them in marketing collaterals to build trust.
5. Address negative feedback
Addressing negative feedback usually takes a backseat, but it is an untapped way of retaining customers and earning loyalty.
Negative feedback is a roadblock to success. When ignored, it can lead to customer dissatisfaction, missed opportunities, and even a bad reputation. However, when you address and handle it promptly as Nike does, this feedback can be a second chance to make things right.
Remember Starbucks’ customer service recovery frameworks: the LATTE rule. It stands for:
- Listen to the customer
- Acknowledge the problem or situation
- Take action and solve the problem
- Thank the customer
- Explain what you did
You must listen to the customer’s concern without interruption, acknowledge their feelings, and take immediate action to resolve the issue. After you fix the problem, thank your patron for bringing the problem to your attention and explaining how you will prevent such situations thereon.
Follow the LATTE rule or Marriott’s LEARN framework (Listen, Empathize, Apologize, Respond, Notify) to convert a disgruntled customer into a satisfied and loyal one.
Conclusion
The bottom line is clear — listening to your customers is the route to success. It lets you navigate consumer preferences, needs, and concerns. Ultimately, it acts as a catalyst for growth.
Through customer surveys, website tracking, social media monitoring, and speedily addressing negative feedback, you can:
- Bolster relationships,
- Foster loyalty, and
- Boost your business’s success.
It may not lead to immediate gains but can bring sustainable, long-term growth.
The power of VoC extends far beyond surveys and feedback loops; it represents a commitment to your customers’ voices, fueling a perpetual cycle of improvement.
Remember that growth opportunities don’t occur overnight; they are an actionable reality that happens with a focused strategy. So, make your customer’s voice your foundation for steering your business toward success.
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