Customer feedback is one of the most valuable tools every company has at their disposal. But it can be hard to figure out how to utilize the feedback you are already getting and increase it. So here are some of the best ways to increase customer feedback and tips for getting the most out of it.

Popular customer feedback methods

There are many different ways you can source feedback from your audience. Here are some of the easiest and most popular ones.

Live chat transcripts

Many companies offer a chat platform to help users connect to their support teams or customer service team. While it may not be an obvious source for feedback, looking through these message transcripts can help you figure out why your customers are struggling and what obstacles they may be encountering in their customer journey. This can help you notice common pain points before they become larger issues and fix them in time.

Recorded sales calls

Much like with chat transcripts, your sales team's calls can be another great but unexpected way to figure out what your potential customers like and dislike about your product. What makes them sign up? What concerns do they voice? Listening to these calls can give you some of those answers.

Social media channels

Social media has made it a lot easier for products to find an audience, and for that audience to get in touch with your company. People like to talk about the things they enjoy, and the things they don't. Keeping up to date with what people are saying about your company and product can help you figure out what people want from you.

Email and customer contact forms

Often, emails and website forms will be the first point of contact for customers with questions are concerned. It's probably also one of the oldest and most popular forms of customer support, and that's not without reason: it works.

Customer surveys

Many companies put together surveys to help gather more targeted feedback from their customers. Unlike some of the other forms of feedback collection listed here, surveys are less passive, and they require more work on your part, too.

To create a successful survey, you'll need to figure out exactly what questions you want to ask, and what information you want to target. Are there particular features you want to ask about? Are you having issues with customer retention, and want to figure out why? Are you looking to improve things? All of these questions are great for guiding a survey, but you'll need to be as precise as possible to get the best info.

Unfortunately, while surveys can net you some of the best feedback, they tend to have low response rates. You'll need to find ways to incentivize your customers to respond--something we'll talk more about in a bit.

The top ways to boost your feedback

Now that we've discussed some of the ways of collecting feedback you may already be using, let's discuss how to boost your feedback with some more creative options.

Hold customer interviews

Customer interviews are a great way to get detailed, specific information from your users. Satisfied customers are often happy to give feedback if you ask, and it's also a great way to make sure they feel heard.

To conduct a successful customer interview, it's important to know what you want to get from the interview. What kind of customer or user story are you looking to target? What areas of your product do you want to get feedback on? Make sure the customers you are contacting fit your answers to these questions.

Make a feature request board

While many customers like giving feedback, not all of them will feel comfortable saying it directly or want to go through normal channels. Including a feature request board or a feedback board on your website is a great low-stakes way for customers to anonymously add what they'd like to see from your product and help source product ideas for you, too.

Feature request boards are also a great way to increase customer loyalty by making sure your customers feel heard and see that their ideas are being taken into consideration.

Offer incentives for feedback

It's important to keep in mind that filling out surveys or undergoing interviews is a time commitment for your customers that they might be hesitant to agree to. Their schedules are often as busy as yours, and they might feel like they are giving you valuable information without getting much in return.

One way to counteract this is to offer incentives for feedback. This doesn't have to be money--it could be a bonus resource, or a discount on a monthly payment, or anything else that adds value to your customers' experience.

Host a social media contest

Contests are fun, and they can be a great way to get feedback from customers who may not have been willing to talk to you otherwise. The chance to win something is always a great incentive.

It's important here that the time commitment doesn't outweigh the potential reward. If you're holding a contest for survey feedback, keep the survey as brief as possible while still trying to get as much info as you can. When posting on social media platforms, it's also important to make sure that you set clear start and end dates for the contest so customers know when to expect results.

Proven ways to increase customer satisfaction

Regardless of how you collect feedback for your product, there are several tips to keep in mind to make sure you're keeping your customers satisfied and getting the feedback you need.

Keep an eye on metrics

Metrics are a great way to measure customer satisfaction and help your product become successful. Keeping an eye on things like churn rate and retention rate can help you figure out if you're experiencing problems with customer satisfaction before they become larger issues.

Reply to all feedback

Whether you're getting positive feedback or negative feedback on your product, it's important to reply to every real piece of feedback you get. All customer interactions are important, and treating them as such can help keep your customers satisfied and loyal. Customers like to know that you're listening to their experiences and hear what they're saying.

Act on complaints and negative reviews

You need to know why users don't have a good user experience with your company. For smaller customer issues, listening to users and offering help can help you retain customers, but it's also important to know why people are leaving your product if the issue is unresolvable. Even if that person had a bad experience, taking the time to listen and acknowledge them can help keep your brand image intact. 

Set clear expectations

Your customers need to know what to expect from you, and you need to be able to deliver on those expectations. Make sure they know how to get in contact with you, how long it should take to get a response, and where their feedback will go.

Customers might not want to give feedback if they think it's pointless. Expectations can help people know that you're listening and have a plan for getting back to them.

Experience the journey yourself

One of the best ways to understand your customers is to undergo the customer journey yourself from start to finish. This will help you and your support teams be better able to relate to your customers and understand their concerns. Plus, you might be able to boost customer experience yourself and figure out what areas might need improvement before your customers do.

Offer multiple points of contact

Having multiple different ways for customers to get in touch with you and give feedback will help you diversify the feedback you get and make it easier for customers to share their opinions. We've mentioned a lot of them already here, from email contact forms to social media private messages to chat widgets.

Likewise, it's also a good idea to have a dedicated support centre your users can visit to answer questions and resolve smaller issues on their own. This can help cut back on the overall amount of feedback your support team will get and in turn make it easier to get back to the people who need help.

Ensure employee satisfaction

Happy employees mean happy customers. If your team is satisfied and feels supported by your company, they're often more productive and do better quality work. The care for everyone, employee and client alike, will shine through and help your company succeed.

Use user feedback management software

Lastly, using a user feedback management software platform like UserVitals can help you collect and centralize valuable feedback from your audience so you can get the most out of it.

Through integrations with products like Slack, Intercom and HelpScout, as well as a dedicated customer portal and feedback widget, UserVitals brings in individual pieces of feedback known as Insights into your dashboard together. These Insights can then be organized into Stories by common themes (e.g. source, customer journey stage, relevant team) so you can analyze it all together and pick out patterns or higher-level themes.

By grouping individual pieces of feedback into like categories, you can make sure you're noticing trends and better addressing them in order to keep your audience happy. UserVitals also helps you build a roadmap and changelog, so your users can stay up-to-date with updates and fixes and know what changes are in the works for the future.