How to collect customer feedback

Collecting customer feedback goes far beyond measuring satisfaction—it’s a propellant for growth. Listening to customers and acting on their feedback enables businesses to develop better products, enhance the customer experience (CX), and better meet customer needs.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the importance of customer feedback, its various types, when and how to collect it, and how to utilize it to benefit your business.

Customer feedback is the information, opinions, and insights customers provide about their experiences with a company’s products or services. It highlights positive and negative customer experiences and can be used to make improvements.

Feedback from customers is essential to building customer loyalty, addressing pain points, and elevating CX. Gathering customer feedback allows businesses to:

Collecting customer feedback at strategic intervals across the entire customer journey is the ideal approach for maximizing benefits. 

Automated post-purchase surveys gather immediate feedback on the shopping experience. These surveys can assess site navigation, the checkout process, and overall brand perception, ensuring every customer has an opportunity to provide input.

Pop-up surveys deployed while customers are actively browsing your website gather real-time data on user experience. This format effectively captures input on site navigation, product inventory, and search success, often resulting in more candid feedback.

Cart abandonment presents an ideal opportunity to solicit customer feedback. Send a targeted survey via email or SMS to identify friction points that deterred the purchase. This crucial data can then be used to prevent future cart abandonment.

Businesses should send customer feedback surveys and read online reviews regularly to support continuous improvement. Rolling feedback helps a brand track changes in customer behavior or perception. Continuously gathering feedback ensures you have the most up-to-date information to inform business decisions.  

Want the full 360-degree view of your customer? You can benefit from several types of feedback, which we can organize into three powerful categories: direct, indirect, and inferred feedback. Let's dive into each type and see how they work.

Direct feedback is the most straightforward and actionable type, as it's given intentionally and willingly by customers when specifically requested. This invaluable input is used to enhance the customer experience, improve products, and refine internal processes.

Some direct feedback examples include:

Indirect feedback is gleaned from natural customer actions and unsolicited comments, rather than formal requests. This valuable insight captures opinions that customers share willingly and spontaneously.

Some indirect feedback examples include:

Unlike direct or indirect input, inferred feedback is based entirely on observable customer behavior data. It measures actions taken with your brand, not stated opinions.

Some inferred feedback examples include:

So how should you collect customer feedback to inform business decisions? There are many different customer feedback collection methods to choose from, including:

Surveys ask customers questions to collect direct feedback. They can be used to gather both qualitative and quantitative data, depending on the types of questions used. Customers are more likely to respond to surveys when they are concise and straightforward, using clear language. 

Surveys are one of the best ways to collect customer feedback because they’re highly customizable and easy to create. Businesses can send surveys at different points throughout the customer journey to gather input on various aspects of their brand and products. They can also ask customer service survey questions to monitor the performance of their support team. 

Feedback forms are another great way to collect customer feedback directly. Feedback forms ask customers to share input on a specific part of your business. The collected feedback is then used to gauge how customers perceive your brand and to inform business improvements.

Customer feedback forms help businesses pinpoint areas for improvement and highlight company strengths. Feedback forms can be easily embedded on your business’s website to enable on-demand feedback. 

Many businesses ask customers or clients to leave product reviews or testimonials about their experience working with a company. Product reviews are highly valuable sources of customer feedback because they often reveal specific issues with products that can be addressed and resolved. 

Customers can help you pinpoint what’s working and what isn’t, allowing you to make strategic improvements or add new features. Testimonials are positive reviews of your business and can help attract new customers. 

Social listening, the practice of tracking informal customer feedback on social media, is another method for collecting feedback. It relies on customers who openly share their opinions online. Monitor brand mentions to gather candid customer feedback and gain a deeper understanding of your customers’ opinions. 

The benefit of social listening is that customers are sometimes more honest about their experiences than they are in surveys or forms. They may not realize that your business might take action based on the feedback. 

In-person interviews and focus groups gather direct customer feedback to help improve products and messaging strategies. Interviewers will ask participants questions about a specific topic, whether it's customer satisfaction, a new product concept, current products, or marketing messaging.

Interviews and focus groups enable researchers to ask follow-up questions, thereby gaining deeper insights from customers. Additionally, researchers can observe non-verbal cues to further inform data. 

On-site tools, such as web forms or live chat logs, can be used to gather customer feedback and monitor user behavior. Businesses can use website analytics to track bounce rates, time on page, and click paths. This data helps inform how easily customers can navigate your website and make a purchase. 

Additionally, live chat logs can be a valuable source of customer feedback. Customers often share feedback with customer service representatives or support bots via live chat. Don’t disregard these messages, as they can be extremely helpful in making improvements. 

Whether you choose to use surveys, forms, reviews, social listening, interviews, or on-site tools will depend on your business’s goals for customer feedback. Here are some tips for selecting the most suitable feedback method for your specific needs. 

When deciding on a feedback collection method, you must consider your primary goal. Whether your goal is to gauge customer satisfaction levels or test a new concept, understanding your objective will help you determine the best method. 

For instance, if you’re looking to gauge customer satisfaction, a Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) survey or Net Promoter Score (NPS®)  survey is ideal. But for evaluating your website’s user experience, you may want to use a web form or other on-site tools. You can also use a customer service survey or Customer Effort Score (CES) survey to gather input on the customer support process after a support chat.

Different customer segments may prefer different communication styles. This is important to consider when choosing a feedback method. For example, younger, digital native audiences may prefer in-app surveys or quick feedback buttons. B2B or professional audiences might prefer more structured email surveys or in-person interviews.

The touchpoint in the customer journey you choose matters. It’s essential to match the method to the touchpoint to provide the most seamless feedback experience possible. 

Think about when and where customers are most likely to share honest feedback. Timing and context help you collect accurate data. Use on-site pop-up or exit surveys to capture customer feedback while their experience is still fresh. Gather social media feedback during product launches to gain insight into brand sentiment. 

Often, you will want to choose a method that can offer both qualitative and quantitative data for richer results. Quantitative feedback (e.g., ratings or scores) helps you track patterns over time, while qualitative feedback (e.g., comments or interviews) explains why customers feel the way they do.

Now that you have a better understanding of what customer feedback is and how to collect it, let’s discuss best practices for gathering and utilizing it. Here are some tips for collecting customer feedback to achieve the best results.

The right time to send a survey will depend on your goals for the feedback. The timing and context in which you send customer feedback surveys are crucial for obtaining accurate data. Consider when your customers are most likely to respond honestly.

For instance, send post-purchase surveys to assess customer satisfaction during the checkout and shopping processes. A short survey with a few questions sent directly after a customer makes a purchase will help gather valuable feedback.  

Customers don’t want to spend a ton of time leaving feedback. That’s why it’s so essential to make surveys short and straightforward. Keep questions to a minimum and make sure all included questions support your goal. This prevents survey fatigue and supports more complete data. When surveys are too long, customers are less likely to complete them. 

Protect customers’ privacy by using a trusted and encrypted survey platform, such as SurveyMonkey. To build confidence, clearly explain how the data will be used and stored, avoid requesting unnecessary information, and comply with data protection regulations such as the GDPR or CCPA.

Collecting feedback anonymously from customers can yield more honest answers. Consider whether a customer’s identity is critical to your data collection process; if not, try using anonymous surveys instead. Anonymous responses are often more candid because respondents aren’t afraid to speak their minds. 

What’s next? Collecting customer feedback is great, but you have to take the next steps to reap its benefits. After gathering feedback, you need to analyze the insights, take meaningful action, and close the feedback loop. 

Collecting customer feedback is only the first step. To see measurable, meaningful improvements in your customer experience, you must take the time to analyze survey data and extract insights from your customer feedback program.

To analyze feedback effectively:

You’ll gain a well-rounded understanding of your customers by combining numerical and qualitative feedback. 

Related reading: Develop a data analysis plan in 7 steps

Analysis is incomplete without action. Use the critical trends and insights you uncovered to immediately inform your business decisions and drive results that foster happier customers.

Examples of meaningful actions include:

Another crucial step is to close the customer feedback loop. This means letting customers know you heard them and are grateful for their feedback. Closing the feedback loop with customers builds trust and loyalty. Ensure that customers know your business acts on their feedback to provide better products and experiences. 

To close the feedback loop:

Customer feedback is your most critical asset. It provides a direct line to your customers’ honest opinions on your brand, products, and overall experience. From sending post-purchase surveys to engaging customers while they browse your site, there are endless opportunities to listen.

Use our tips to gather powerful insights that drive meaningful action and fuel continuous improvement for your business.

SurveyMonkey makes it easy for teams to collect customer feedback and turn it into actionable insights. Get started building professional surveys today!

NPS, Net Promoter & Net Promoter Score are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.