Customer feedback is crucial to any business’s success. It provides valuable insights into customer satisfaction levels, areas for improvement, and the overall health of a company’s relationship with its customers.
Customer feedback may be provided as a passive feedback or an active feedback. Let’s explore the methods used for each of these categories and how these can help you achieve your customer satisfaction goals.
Passive Feedback
Passive feedback is feedback initiated by clients. It refers to insights a customer provides without being prompted by the organization. This type of feedback often arises organically during various interactions between the customer and the company.
Passive feedback may be collected during various interactions you have with the customer during or after the product or service delivery. This could be spontaneous feedback when they receive your product or service. The medium could be face-to-face interaction with one of your employees or manager in physical stores, feedback on your website, apps or online platforms, etc.
Passive feedback may also be received when you are meeting your customers during progress meetings or sales meetings. They may share their thoughts, concerns, or suggestions which can offer valuable insights on your products or services.Social media is another medium for passive feedback. Customers often share their experiences, both positive and negative, through platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and review sites like Google Reviews.
Feedback on Social Media
The growth of social media over the past few years has made it a powerful tool where reviews posted by users can make or break a business. Some of the ways feedback is received on social media are:
Google Reviews:
Google Reviews is a popular platform for customers to leave feedback and reviews about their experiences with a business. These reviews are publicly visible and can greatly influence potential customers’ decisions.
Facebook Reviews:
Similar to Google Reviews, Facebook provides a platform for customers to rate and review businesses, allowing for the sharing of feedback and experiences with a broader audience.
LinkedIn:
On LinkedIn, professionals often provide passive feedback about their interactions with companies, particularly in the context of B2B relationships. These comments and endorsements can impact a company’s reputation.
Active Feedback
Active feedback, on the other hand, is initiated by the organization through deliberate efforts to collect customer opinions and insights. This proactive approach allows companies to target specific areas of interest and gather structured data.
Methods for Actively Collecting Customer Feedback
Methods for Actively Collecting Customer Feedback include:
Customer Satisfaction Surveys:
Customer Satisfaction surveys are often initiated by the organisations to gather customer feedback. A customer survey typically hasa detailed questionnaire relevant to the business with an objective to gather customer experiences, their preferences and areas where improvement is required.
Post-Delivery Questionnaire:
Post-deliveryquestionnaires are typically gathered at the end of a purchase or service interaction to gauge the customer experience with the particular purchase or service.
Phone calls or meetings:
These phone calls or meetings may be conducted to gather active feedback from the customer. The face-to-face/telephonicinteractions may give companies deeper insights when the customers are asked specific questions related to the product or service delivered.
Advantages of Actively Collecting Customer Feedback
Actively seeking customer feedback through methods like surveys, feedback forms, or meetings has several advantages compared to passively receiving feedback through channels like customers calling in or social media:
Customer Engagement:
signal to customers that your company is open to their opinions and is dedicated to meeting their needs. This proactive approach can foster trust and loyalty.It can enhance customer engagement and loyalty.
Targeted Areas Important to your Business:
Active feedback methods enable you to ask specific questions tailored to your business goals and objectives. You can gather feedback on particular products, services, or aspects of your business that you want to improve.
Quantitative Data:
Surveys and feedback forms often include rating scales or numerical responses, allowing for quantitative analysis. This numerical data can help you measure customer satisfaction or track changes over time.
Tracking your Progress Over Time:
Active feedback collection lets you establish benchmarks and track progress over time. You can compare current results with historical data to assess the impact of changes and improvements.
Greater Control:
When actively seeking feedback, you have control over the timing and format of the questions. This ensures that you gather information when it’s most relevant and in a format that is easy to analyze.
Reach a broader Customer base:
Active methods of feedback collection ensure that you reach a broader cross-section of your customer base. You can target specific customer segments, demographics, or customer journeys to get a more comprehensive view.
Avoid Bias:
Passive feedback collection, such as social media, may attract feedback from customers with strong opinions, which can introduce bias. Actively seeking feedback allows you to balance and diversify the feedback you receive.
Better Response Rates:
You can control and potentially increase response rates with active feedback methods, ensuring that you hear from a representative sample of your customers. This helps in making more informed decisions.
Continuous Improvement:
Regularly seeking feedback through active methods fosters a culture of continuous improvement within your organization. It encourages employees to take customer input seriously and act on it.
To conclude, both passive and active feedback are essential for understanding and improving customer experiences. While passive feedback offers spontaneous insights, active feedback provides structured data that can be used to address specific areas of concern. A well-rounded feedback strategy that incorporates both types can be a powerful tool in building and maintaining strong customer relationships and driving business success.
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