A quick question to get your brain engaged. Are your customers happy?
You might instantly jump to an answer like somewhere along the lines of;
Sure. They come. They spend. Like all businesses, there are things we are improving on, but stats say we’re growing steadily, and everything’s okay.
Everything’s okay. I love hearing that come from aspiring and motivated businesses. I want you to think outside the box. When people are coming to your website, which is considered to be what most customers will be doing at some point for reasons we’ll explore, you are providing them with an experience. Your experience.
And how is your experience? Is it only okay, or is it more than that? Don’t you want it to be amazing? Fantastic? The talk of the town? How about creating a website that people actually love to come back to because it was just that good, only if they’re buying something every now and then?
It’s all possible, but you can’t just dream up an amazing website and hope the best. There’s a small chance you’ll get it right. Instead, why not give your customers what they want by asking them.
This is the power of website feedback, and today, I’m going to teach you everything you need to know about getting it easily and effectively.
Why Website Feedback?
Statistics show that around one in 25 customers will actually complain about your website being a problem. The other 24 will just leave and never come back. Geez, that’s a lot of missed sales potential.
Sure, your website may vary (check your bounce rate in your analytics), but you’re missing out on why. You can stab around in the dark trying to guess why, but if they’re able to tell you, you can paint a much more accurate and realistic picture of the real public opinion surrounding your online presence.
By acquiring feedback from your customers, you’re enabling yourself access to three key areas of information;
- Problems that your customers are facing that affect your user experience and, ultimately, your conversion rates.
- It shows you want your customers want and expect from your website and your business.
- Shows your customers you care and are more likely to buy, spread brand awareness, and more.
In short, customer feedback on your website is a good thing, which is why for the rest of this guide, I’m going to show you a whole bunch of ways on how to get it.
Start a Survey Campaign
By far, the easiest way to get feedback is to start a survey, and the chances are you’ve seen these on a lot of websites you visit yourself. Typically a pop-up that appears onscreen, you can ask a brief 3-5 questions that allow you to focus on the areas of your online experience that you’re concerned about.
As long as you make your survey stand out and grab your user’s attention but isn’t disruptive and makes their experience a negative one (I’m sure you’ve experienced pop-up ads you just find annoying).
Don’t forget you can get creative with your surveys. You can turn them into games, inject a ton of personality into the wording and language, make it fun, offer a little surprise or discount for people who take the time to complete it, but ensure the questions remain open-ended.
Yes or no questions are fine, but they can restrict the information you find out. Did you have a good time using this website? No. You’re not going to find out why unless you give people the chance to explain.
What’s more, running surveys help you to build trust with your customers because it shows you care about what they have to say, and are investing resources into giving them the experience they want. This is only going to help improve your brand and customer loyalty.
Alternating Question Surveys
Hand in hand with the above, using ‘either or’ questions can be a great way to get information out of your customers in a fun, effective, yet most importantly, minimal way. Neil Patel, the marketing whiz, is a great fan of these kinds of questions.
He explains how you can help create detailed customer personas using these survey types, meaning you can identify exactly who your customers are, therefore allowing you to market and promote to them more effectively in the future.
Dig Deeper with Phone Calls
Sure, bright and shiny pop-ups may be what everyone uses, but sometimes you’re going to want more information, a more detailed response, or you’re going to want to find out, in-depth, how your customers feel. One of the best ways to do that is via a good old-fashioned phone call.
Now, there are some obvious drawbacks as to why you wouldn’t use this method. It’s time-consuming. You don’t want to cold-call people. You don’t want to hire someone to sit at a phone all day, especially if you’re a small business, but all this doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
“More and more, customers are starting to appreciate follow-up calls from businesses because it provides such a unique experience that many businesses simply aren’t offering. It may even take customers by surprise that you’re calling up and not just trying to sell them something, but genuinely asking them if they’re okay and what they can do better later, explains Joseph Lawrence, a tech expert at Paperfellows and Boomessays.
It’s this kind of bespoke service that is going to get customers coming back to you and will get them spreading the word that your business is the best. What’s more, you’ll have a unique chance to find out what people actually think, without worrying about the traditional miscommunication that can happen over digital mediums.
Of course, you could always switch out phone calls and send your customers an email instead with the same kind of approach. Remember, you’re not trying to sell or promote anything, you’re just trying to get the information you need to know so you can make your experience better for everyone who comes your way.
Implement the Use of Chatbots
Chatbots are everywhere right now, and that’s because they’re just so good at engaging people on websites. They pop up, people usually know they are AI-controlled, but they mimic human behavior so much that people just respond when they need something.
More and more websites are taking advantage of this and will use chatbots to ask, ‘is everything going okay?’ or ‘how can I help you today?’ These kinds of questions add a whole new layer to your customer service experience, and if something is wrong and the customer is having trouble, they have an opportunity to get a solution straight away.
As a business, you can then access these chatlogs to see what kind of problems people are having, and therefore what aspects of your business and website you need to focus on improving.
According to the stats, around 66% of online customers want to speak with chatbots (mainly because they reply within a few seconds and don’t have the pressures of speaking to someone else), when they have a simple query.
If you look into the logs and see a topic or problem coming up time and time again, you know it’s time to focus on improving that element of your website.
Get Website Feedback with WhatsUrl
What is WhatsUrl?
This is the name of one of the features present in the JotUrl marketing kit – the omnichannel tool to maximize your digital campaigns.
WhatsUrl allows you to take advantage of the famous WhatsApp App to get in direct contact with your customers without even having to have their phone number.
This is because they will be the ones who will contact you, without violating their privacy or any GDPR regulations in any way.
WhatsUrl allows you to create a personalized message within an editor that truly looks like Whatsapp chat. You can compose the message that your visitors can send you to get in touch with you – and even insert Emoji!
Once you have saved your WhatsUrl you will simply have to share your tracking link on social networks, via email, or by inserting it in some CTA button or contact form. The user will be redirected to his personal WhatsApp and can already start a conversation with your phone number, or with that of the company.
You can choose which number you will be contacted directly when creating your WhatsUrl, it’s all very practical and fast, creating a link of this type will take you less than two minutes.
The user will already have a message ready to send, the one you have created for him / her and this will greatly improve the chances of interaction and involvement. If you think about it, this system can be very practical and convenient for getting feedback from your users.
And this is just one of JotUrl’s features that can help you get immediate feedback from your visitors. Here you can find a fantastic feature to create mobile-optimized landing pages in a couple of minutes and with which to get feedback on your website.
Engage with Social Media
Ah yes, social media. The platforms where everybody is more than happy to share how they’re thinking and feeling, and while many will waste their time uploading holiday photos and dinner date orders, you have a unique chance to get them talking about you.
Now, when it comes to business, social media can be a double-edged sword. If things are going great, word spreads, and everything works out. If something bad happens, it can quickly become a very public ordeal. With this in mind, you may be wondering why you’re publicly asking people to share what they think your website does badly.
Simply put, you’re actively working on being better, and people appreciate that. If you’re asking people via a social post, responding to reviews and complaints, or generally engaging with customers who engage with your content, and you’re responding in a productive way, you’re publicly showing people you’re a company who’s willing to adapt and evolve and aims to become the best version of itself.
Sticking to the point of this article, you can use social media in the traditional sense, such as engaging with what people are saying to you on your brand page, but you can be far more proactive with your approach.
“You can run Q&A sessions via a text post or by going live on your Instagram Story. You can run creative, nice-looking polls on your story, use a comment section, and so on. Imagine updating as a new feature, then posting a screenshot to your Instagram asking customers what they think and what they would like to see do better?” shares Nikki Harper, a writer at OXEssays and Liahelp.
It’s a great way to engage people, and it’s not that people are going to pull you apart, you’re doing all this to create a better experience for everyone.
Catch Them on the Way Out
You may have seen pop-ups like this on a website you’ve visited, where you go to click off the website and continue your search elsewhere, and a pop-up suddenly appears saying something along the lines of ‘wait, we’ve got more to show you.’ This is particularly common on eCommerce websites.
These pop-ups are known accurately as ‘exit-intent’ pop-ups, and statistics show they work around 5% more effectively than traditional pop-ups, so they’re definitely worth a try and may work wonders for your bounce rate.
Don’t forget to be creative, so you stand out from the crowd. Don’t just fill the box with a generic message and hope for the best. Create multiple-choice questions that ask why the customer is thinking about leaving or offer them something that’s going to get them to stay.
All this feedback comes together, no matter where you got it from, to give you information that allows you to make precise, informed decisions that will bring about better results.
By Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff is a writer at UKWritings and Academized. She writes about improving customer experiences in the modern age. Also, she is a tutor at Essay Writing Service.
