How could an ecommerce business collect customer feedback?

Intro

The ecommerce arena is overcrowded and fiercely competitive. That means customers have alternatives. And 91% of consumers expect you to remember their interests and preferences, and offer relevant experiences.

Customer feedback reveals the degree to which you meet customer expectations. It helps you understand how well your online store answers customers’ interests and needs. When there’s room for improvement in any business area, it helps you identify it and make it happen.

So, how do youcollect customer feedback?

6 tactics to collect customer feedback in ecommerce

Let’s take a look at 6 tactics to collect customer feedback in ecommerce.

1. Survey customers

It’s impossible to thoroughly understand how customers feel about their interactions with you without directly asking them. This is where customer surveys come to your help.

With customer intelligence coming from your CRM, marketing and sales platforms, you can identify where a shopper’s journey starts and ends. And you can survey them about every touchpoint they have, from your category pages to your customer service team’s interactions.

You’ll find that customers will offer actionable feedback and suggestions that you haven’t thought of, or didn’t prioritize before.

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Surveys are also useful to find out if a new feature, a policy change, or an addition to your assortment is well received by customers. When you introduce a change, collect customer feedback on how they felt about it.

Say, for instance, you want to try displaying the price with shipping on your product pages. Send a survey to a randomly selected group of customers to understand what they think about it. Merge the results with the sales data you gather over time. You’ll have data from two distinct sources, which’ll suffice to say if this pricing strategy had any impact.

Customer surveys are affordable and adaptable to any context. Use targeted survey emails, landing page forms, in-app surveys and other ways to reach out to your customers. If a person is more responsive to a specific channel, use that channel to collect feedback from them. A great tool that allows you to collect feedback is Jotform Survey Maker.

2. Use social listening strategy

In the past few years, we’ve seen a spike in customer-business interactions on social platforms. These platforms have been transforming into spaces where people shop, leave reviews, give feedback, and complain about businesses. A survey even found that half of consumers who have a poor experience will mention it on social media.

As an online retailer, you must have a strong online presence. You have to give an ear to your audience to understand their true intentions and feelings. Sprout Social found that 46% of consumers believe that interacting with your audience on social media is what makes a brand stand out among competitors.

And social listening is the process where you keep track of their conversations around your niche. Social listening is keeping an eye on your brand's social media channels for any feedback, brand mentions, or conversations about particular keywords, subjects, competitors, or sectors.

With the help of social listening tools and social platforms’ analytics modules, you can keep your finger on the pulse of your audience.

Use social media feedback data in adjusting your brand’s voice and communication strategy to connect with your audience. Take Newegg for inspiration:

Embed Tweet:

Officially licensed @Marvel Iron Man massage gun?

Yup. Now you can massage like how the Hulkbuster tries to make the Hulk to go sleep 🥊https://t.co/TNwoHxc7PI pic.twitter.com/KcNKYZZeN4

— Newegg (@Newegg) October 13, 2022

Notice how they use a laid-back tone in a context that resonates with a tech-savvy, game enthusiast audience? This is certainly intentional. In a sense, the retailer meets the customers where they’re at.

And this kind of collective social feedback also offers visibility into the trends that shape your industry. It reveals areas of improvement in any business area, from website design to pricing strategy. You’ll see, for instance, how your audience liked your Black Friday discounts. Your findings will guide you through the next year’s campaign.

3. Make it as easy as possible

If you want customers to give feedback, you’ll have to make it easy. Use the right tools and tricks to make sure the whole process is seamless. Online marketing games are a great way to attract your users by making feedback gathering interactive.

3.1 Use feedback buttons

Customer feedback can be easily and quickly gathered via feedback buttons. Feedback buttons let people express their opinions immediately without having to go to another page or filling a long form.

They are ideal for identifying usability issues, bugs, and errors. Because they’re accessible at all times. When there’s an issue calling for your immediate response, they help you collect accurate information right from the customer. This way, you’ll be faster in coming up with effective solutions.

3.2 Add a QR code on your packages

Adding a generated dynamic QR code on order packages can help you gather feedback right when you complete an order. Customers can simply leave a review by scanning the QR code with their smartphones.

And this kind of feedback is crucial. It gives you the perspective of someone who went through all the stages of the buying journey. It provides a comprehensive look to the whole experience of your business.

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4. Monitor user activity

Although surveys are useful, you can’t constantly conduct surveys or send survey emails. If you do it too often, it might reflect poorly on your brand’s reputation. Customers might think you have too much to do before your site properly functions.

But asking is not the only way you collect feedback from customers. In some cases, observations can reveal more than what customers say—or even acknowledge in the first place.

A variety of user activity monitoring tools can help you actually observe customer behavior. Instead of requesting information, you can observe users to drive insights on your own.

This type of silent feedback overcomes response biases. Response bias—a sort of survey bias—is the tendency of respondents to give inaccurate responses, either purposefully or without knowing.

Embed: Heat Maps & Session Replays:

User activity monitoring tools allow you to understand how your design elements, category filters, or website’s navigation come together to shape customer experience. When customers find blog content boring, the heatmap will tell you that. If your website’s navigation is confusing, the user screen recordings will give you hints.

5. Build your own community across platforms

Incentives like discounts or free shipping can encourage people to give feedback. Yet it doesn’t mean that they’ll actually put some thought in it, or continue doing it over time. The key is to make customers believe feedback actually contributes to your business.

A study found that over 75% of internet users participate in an online community. Build an online community that’ll grow across forums and platforms like Reddit, Facebook, Quora, Hive, Twitter, TikTok, and so on. Participate in discussions, ask for opinions, and apply your findings into product development.

It’s not possible to make everyone happy at the same time, for sure. But you’ll come across popular pain points and suggestions. And more importantly, you’ll start informed conversations that are mutually beneficial. Once customers see that you take their feedback and make something out of it, they’ll be more willing to share feedback in the future.

6. Organize virtual events

Virtual events can be used as fun bonding activities to grow your community. Live shopping, a form of virtual event, has taken over the Chinese ecommerce market since 2016 on Single’s Day. Taobao, Alibaba’s livestream commerce channel, has generated over $61Bn in 2020 alone.

Embed: The Evolution of Taobao Live:

Although smaller in scale, you can hold live shopping events too. Organize themed live shopping events where you can get to know your customers and start conversations.

Let customers ask you questions about your products, pricing, or whatever they care about. They’ll feel comfortable talking to a real person—and be willing to share. You’ll get the chance to investigate their issues and turn negative experiences into positive ones.

Open polls during the live sessions to collect feedback about the event and their experience with your business. Since your audience will be active participants, they’ll be more willing to state their opinion.

To wrap it up:

Customer feedback could be used in product development. A customer-oriented product strategy is mainly focused on customer sentiments and needs and how they change. A solid customer feedback strategy makes it possible for companies to adapt to market changes.

If you’re not sure what areas of your product development could benefit from customer feedback, use product development consulting services to make sure you’re making the right choice. Then take advantage of the tactics explained above to gather data on the areas you have in mind.