Whether you’re a company that specializes in hospitality, electronics, mens shirts, or any other field, customer feedback is of equal importance. The simple act of listening to your customers could make the world of difference to your business. You may think that you’re ticking all the boxes and meeting the needs of your consumers, but how can you actually be sure without asking them? Read on to find out what a true difference customer feedback can make, and how to expertly apply the information to your brand.
First things first: establish your target audience
Placing more value in products than people could put you at a disadvantage to your competitors. Establishing your target audience, and personalizing their experience could greatly improve your brand. Personalisation has taken many businesses by storm, and for a brand to succeed they need to capture engaging elements in their market strategies, while also accounting for the human element that customers look for in an ever-automated world. Building strong customer relationships is more important than ever and listening to feedback from your audience is inherent to this. A recent survey from Infosys found that 31% of respondents said that they want their shopping experience to be far more personalised than it currently is.
By listening to customer feedback, you can identify your customers’ marketing preferences and develop a positive perception of your brand. The retail industry is leading the way in this demonstration. As brick and mortar stores become gradually left behind in the fast-moving digital age, businesses are constantly under pressure to evolve and nurture the data that they have on customers. This is becoming particularly apparent in the telcoms industry with companies such as Maplewave who provide services to retailers that offers a retail experience that resonates in the digital age. Convenience is a sought-after aspect amongst the new, younger market demographic, and by listening to customer feedback you can devise ways to make your brand appeal to a potentially larger audience. Coffee giant Starbucks made their digital app ultra-convenient by using locational data as well as previous orders to make getting that essential caffeine hit a streamlined service. Introduced as part of their rewards system, the customisable options helped revenue to soar to $2.56 billion.
Check in on your customers’ happiness
Maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction is of the utmost importance if you want to stay ahead of rival brands. If you are smart with your approach to customer feedback, then you can boost your satisfaction rates as well as develop consumer loyalty. Every home will have its own stock of ‘household name’ type products that are absolute essentials on every shopping trip, and the reason that these products have achieved such status is by sustaining a consistently high level of customer satisfaction.
Asking questions and keeping your customers involved in your brand is one of the best ways to maintain their satisfaction levels. There are a few smart metric strategies that you could employ to help. One example is the Net Promoter Score known as NPS, which allows your business to uncover target responses from your customers relating to your product or service. Through a series of simple questions with answers based on a 0-10 rating scale, with 0 being most negative and 10 being most positive, you can develop an understanding of how satisfied your customers feel towards your brand. The UK cosmetics experts Lush have topped a plethora of polls based on customer satisfaction and experience. From their revolutionised tablet-based till payments to the ethical, transparent brand character, the business has become customer satisfaction force to be reckoned with. Many of the stores’ branches are experimenting with both visual search technologies and voice activated assistants, showing just how much they value investing in their customer satisfaction rates.
Listen and improve: the key to success
Brands that don’t regularly monitor their sales figures and learn how their customers are responding could be in trouble. As a nation, we are currently experiencing a stark demographic shift in the market, with millennial and generation Z shoppers acting as turning points in terms of what the customer wants from a purchase. If a product or service goes unchanged for a prolonged period, then it cannot meet these ever-changing needs and their offering is not up to scratch with the new customer requirements. Not all brands are clued up on the ways that this can be achieved and taking your market research to the next level is always a good place to start.
Consider exploring ways to contact current and potential customers to gauge their thoughts on your product. This tactic should be employed whether you’re a new brand or you’re just wanting to refresh your current products. By pursuing these lines of inquiry, you can identify any flaws, experiences, and preferences which could prove fundamental for distinguishing your business and product in a congested market. These kind of insights are such a valuable tool for brands nowadays who are aiming to improve their products, but if they are not applying the findings in the right way then they become pointless. The thriving beauty and skincare business Glossier is a great example of this, as the team includes dedicated customer service agents who work closely with the marketing department and listen to customer experiences. By listening to customer feedback, you are essentially promoting a culture of improvement.
As we have seen, listening to your customer feedback is absolutely essential to the development of your brand. Taking opinions into account could be invaluable for any brand, no matter what sector your business is in.
Article written by Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts
