Top 5 Customer Feedback Mistakes to Avoid & Tips on How to Avoid

1. Asking for feedback at the wrong times. 

You should be allowing your engaged customers to give feedback at every interaction they have with your business. Not a month later, a week later or even a day later because at that point, it’s likely too late. And if they do provide feedback its likely they had a very good or very bad experience. When you make feedback readily available to give, easily and quickly, then you have hit the gold mine. Then you will have a clear understanding of how your customers feel about your business.

2. Not having an action plan in place for the feedback received. 

Collecting feedback is pointless if you’re not going to do anything with it. And customers will eventually figure that out and stop sharing their experiences. Before you kick off your customer feedback initiative, make sure you have a plan in place for how the feedback will be reviewed, addressed with the customer if needed, acted upon and most importantly, communicated back to customers on what specific improvements have been made. Otherwise, it’s just taking up valuable time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

3. Only focusing on the negative. 

Sure, we all do this. It’s normal to home in on the negative ratings and comments when it comes to customer feedback. But if that’s all you’re focusing on then you are not understanding the true picture of your customers’ experiences. Make sure to review all the positive feedback so you have a well-rounded view of what people are saying about your company. This is also a great way to identify what you should continue doing.

4. Not responding to feedback promptly (or not responding at all). 

Customers expect companies to quickly address their concerns and inquiries. If companies don’t, the reality is that your customer will take their business elsewhere. As mentioned previously, ensure that your feedback program has a process in place for responding to customer feedback in a timely manner. SurveyStance has an awesome feature where you can auto-create tasks if a customer says that they would like to be contacted. The task can be sent someone responsible to review the customers survey responses and then reach out to them to discuss and remedy the issue. The feature also includes deadline reminders, a place to input notes and task statuses to ensure no customer reach out slips through the cracks.

5. Ignoring constructive criticism. 

It’s easy to brush off criticism as being not important or helpful, but that’s a huge… HUGE mistake. Constructive criticism is an opportunity. It can be incredibly valuable in helping your business improve its products, services, and policies. These opportunities are like gold and should be used to make your company better!

Customer feedback can be a game changer for your business—but only if it’s done right! Avoid making these 5 common mistakes so that you can get the most out of your customer feedback program.