The Three Categories of Online Customer Feedback
I’ve had the joy of working with a number of companies who have kick-started their new online customer feedback journeys. A favourite pastime here at Mopinion is to look at some of the more outlandish feedback comments that users of our platform receive. It was in one of these recent sessions that the thought popped into my head of ‘what must our clients think when they see this?’
Those who are currently collecting feedback will say that one of the most important parts of any customer feedback project is turning the feedback that you’re receiving into actionable results. With that said, we’ve all been in a position at some point in our lives where we received feedback and didn’t quite know what to do with it. I’ve found that companies who are new to the world of feedback or even companies that have been gathering feedback on an informal basis can struggle with one simple question: “How do we make sense of it all?”
In this post, I’ll take a look at some examples of what you could potentially receive as feedback based on feedback that our users receive and how you can internally sort it into useful categories. I won’t tell you what to do with it, but I can help prepare you for what you’ll see so you can get the most out of customer feedback.
Keep in mind that in terms of feedback volumes and the way in which you request feedback from your visitors, the quality will differ.
The Useful
I want to order an item. I have tried to use two different payment methods. Both were declined. Please advise. I’m about to buy your most expensive product. Name and email@example.com
So why is this one in particular a useful feedback item? Obviously the first and most important part of this feedback piece is that we know that the individual providing it wishes to purchase an item but is prevented from doing so for whatever reason. We know exactly what the individual is trying to purchase, the potential area where the issue is occurring and we also have contact details and a name to further pursue this issue and hopefully close the loop in a valuable way.
These pieces of feedback will undoubtedly make your sales team’s day.
Looking for this item but it’s not in stock. hasn’t been for months. why bother keeping it on your website if u don’t sell it?!
We know that this particular piece of feedback is useful, but it is important for one specific reason. This visitor obviously wants a particular item and has for some time. It tells us that the site potentially contains outdated information. In this case it could be a product that isn’t in store and won’t be again or there could be a technical issue preventing an item from being ordered. These examples of feedback are inherently advantageous.
The Not-so Useful
Wasn’t happy at all with your product. Never again!
Why is this comment not so useful? We know that the customer isn’t happy and we know that something in the product itself is causing their dissatisfaction. Well the reason why it isn’t so useful is that there’s just no added information to detail why this is. We don’t know what the issue is, we don’t know how it was caused and unfortunately unlike in the first example there’s no contact details for a member of customer services to follow-up.
Adding contact details to your forms can help alleviate these issues and turn these not-so useful comments into valuable insights. This is precisely why the questions you to choose to incorporate in your feedback form are so important. For example, by including a follow-up question (using smart question routing), you might have received more of an explanation. Alternatively, the question you asked in this feedback form (which might be located on an inappropriate page of your website) could’ve also been too generic.
(no comment)
Perhaps one of the least helpful pieces of feedback to receive and, unfortunately, one of the most common is a piece of feedback that may be an unclear score (e.g. Net Promoter Score, Goal Completion Rate, or Customer Effort Score) with no details. Due to this fact, it’s important to have feedback forms that can gleam enough information from your visitors without relying on open text to provide all of the details that you’ll require.
The Colourful
Sadly, human beings are emotional creatures and I will preface this by saying that these comments are rare. Still, it’s important to know that this is feedback that you can receive.
Sack [name] in your online chat… She’s a ******* *****
Sometimes comments like this will indeed come in. Technical issues, poor Customer Experience (CX) design or a negative engagement with staff can set off in some cases extreme emotional responses. The most important thing to take into consideration is to not take these sorts of comments personally. Often people forget that there’s a person behind the screen and, under the veil of anonymity, can let their emotions loose.
Despite the negativity, these types of comments can still be salvaged and used for good. For example, if you take this feedback item and cross analyse it with webpage and the browser, you can still extract some interesting insights.
Getting the most out of your feedback
Having seen some examples which are inspired by feedback given to our users in live environments, I hope that this will give you some idea as to what you can expect to receive in a customer feedback project as well as what kind of strategies you can use to receive relevant and meaningful feedback. And although this feedback may surprise you at times, with proper analysis and incorporating the right kinds of questions into your feedback forms, there is always a lot to be gained – even if it doesn’t look like it at first. Most feedback items can provide you with a lot of relevant insights.