Using customer feedback

Do you truly understand your customer's needs? When you are developing a marketing plan, it helps to get some customer feedback so you can successfully market to them and so that you can make adjustments to your products and services in order to make them positively impact your companies' bottom line and develop a stronger bottom line. How can you acquire customer feedback and what do you do once you have acquired it? This article will guide you through what you need to do and what you need to know about marketing correctly to your niche market.

Use surveys
One of the easiest ways to gain customer feedback is by using surveys. Surveys allow you to find out how your customers are feeling about your company. Try to leave a section in the survey where your customers will be able to provide their own opinion instead of one just for the questions you are asking. Use surveys all the time instead of just once and awhile. Having surveys all the time allows you to make continual improvements instead of just once and awhile. What type of surveys should you use? One of the easiest ways to do surveys is by using an online survey method. This way you can set up the survey to go to an Excel file or another program where it will collect and organize it. By doing this you save yourself a lot of time from trying to gather the surveys and analyze the data. Online surveys are also nice because once you set it up you don't have to pay anything if it is on your website. If the survey is through another company you may need to pay a monthly fee.

One other thing to keep in mind with surveys is when you send them out to your customers. If you are trying to collect information on a new product or service, you need to send the survey as soon as possible. This is the only way to truly find out what your customers are thinking because their experience is still fresh on their minds.

Focus on customer satisfaction
In order to use customer feedback correctly, you must know what your customers want and you must be able to satisfy them. Once you have the surveys and you have been able to gather all the information you need from your customers, you will then need to measure customer satisfaction. Each month, input the information into a program like Excel to rate your customers satisfaction levels. Then you will need to use charts to measure their satisfaction. Always include information that may impact your customer's satisfaction level. For example, if you revamp your customer satisfaction levels in June and they include by September, be sure to include what changed to increase their satisfaction level. Perhaps you changed something with your product or at least with your customer service in order to impress your customers. Always make a note of the changes in order to see how it impacts your customer satisfaction levels.

Discover preferences
In order to use customer feedback appropriately, you must be able to discover the preferences of your customers. Use the information to find out what your customers really want from you and look for ways to target them appropriately and focus on servicing them. Even changing simple things like the color of your packages, the design of the package, and the way it is marketed can all have an impact on the preferences of your customers. Remember, your product will only sell if you can gather the trust of your customers and if you can satisfy them.