customer feedback

Customer Feedback is the “Breakfast of Champions”. — Brian Tracy (paraphrased)

Imagine a strange room where one of your happy customers enters one door, and two, five, maybe even ten new prospects, all keen to buy from you exit the other side.

Far fetched?

Maybe not…

With more and more business happening online, a solid set of four and five star ratings on your website can snowball your sales.

And the first step to getting high ratings is asking for feedback from your customers.

When your company delivers a product or service, you need to make it as easy as possible for your customers to show how they felt about it.

In today’s fast-moving, depersonalized digital world, customer feedback is more crucial than ever.

You may dread getting negative feedback from your customers. Yet a negative comment dealt with immediately can turn an unhappy customer into a very happy one. One that will say nice things about your business to folks they know. Turning them into willing prospects.

Is that strange room starting to make sense now?

Here are three tips for turning a bad customer experience into a good one:

First – Be honest. Admit your mistake. Say you’re sorry, let them know you care.

Second – Offer a solution. Now you know the problem – Awesome! Offer to fix it, and maybe throw in a little bonus.

Third – Be quick. Customers have very little patience today. They’ll often give you a second chance, but you’ve got to move fast.

Let’s take an example: Maybe your website promises one-minute delivery, and there’s a delay. If you don’t give your customer a chance to vent her frustration to you, she may vent it to everyone she knows.

And, depending on who she is, that could be very bad for business… Remember, bad news travels quickly.

So, let’s say, instead your website or follow up emails ask for feedback, and she tells what she didn’t like online. You, or your customer relations manager gets an instant text with that message. Now, you have two benefits:

1) You can contact her and mend the damage, perhaps turning her frown to a smile.
2) You know where there’s a problem that your company can improve.

What could be better?

It’s like turning lead into gold!

But wait – It gets better…

What’s the one thing most lacking on the internet?

If you guessed “trust”, you’d be right.

Think back on the past week or so. What have you ordered online?

Was your decision about where to shop or what to buy influenced by one of those little star ratings?

Let’s take a look: Which restaurant would you choose?

Customer Feedback Comparison - 2 Restaurants

Of course – The more stars, reviewed by the greater number of people wins!

On online review may not be quite as good as a tip from someone you know and trust, but numbers don’t lie (your brain says). A four or five star rating from a bunch of happy past customers tells your brain… “It’s okay… Go ahead and take the next step.”

Statistics bear this out:

The Importance Of Online Customer Reviews

Infographic by- Invesp

Online reviews can have a huge impact on buying decisions.

So how can you profit from all this?

Simple. Turn your feedback into online reviews.

Oh, and make sure your reviews are mostly good, by dealing with bad feedback right away when it crops up.

Okay, so now we’ve got THREE totally cool outcomes…

1. You have a happy customer.
2. You have great online reviews.
3. You know where the “broken windows” are in your business – in other words, opportunities for a better customer experience

Are we done yet?

Nope – It gets even better…

Remember that expensive ad agency you were paying to create all those slick ads for you?

Your ad cost just went down. Maybe drastically.

Customer feedback is now fueling some of the best ad copy you could ever hope for.

Isn’t it time you added a little customer feedback to your game plan?

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Mike Connolly
Mike Connolly

Dan Kennedy Certified Copywriter for Info-Marketers and Infusionsoft Certified Partner, Mike Connolly lives in Boulder, Colorado, builds marketing funnels that rock, and loves cycling (almost) all year round.