Customer feedback, 6 reasons why you should not gather it?

By Grace Nguyen

Last updated February 6, 2022

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We all have heard of customer feedback and reviews. It is the input that customers offer after experiencing a specific service or product or company, whether it is negative, positive or neutral. Some feedback is rational, analytical and explanatory, providing reliable information about the product or service. Some feedback is all about the feels, the emotions, the satisfaction, associating with their experience. But all in all, customer feedback is truly a gem if your business knows how to take advantage of it, re-evaluate the system and then make positive decisions upon it.

But under some circumstances you – as a business operator – should not obtain customer feedback or reviews. Here are 6 reasons why.

You should not collect customer feedback if …

1. You are not intending to improve your products or services.

Customer feedback is an extremely insightful supply for your brand and products. Reviews help us figure out why customers no longer want to buy our products. Feedback provides grounds where the products are flawed or have not worked, which pushes businesses to constantly improve their products. After solving the issue, better products will lead to better customer experiences, leading to better sales.

2. You don’t need to measure customer satisfaction, likes and dislikes.

There are various articles that confirm a directly positive relationship between customer satisfaction and business performance, future cash flow, stock price, and shareholders’ shares. The more satisfied our customers are, the more positive they associate our brands, the more they are likely to recommend to friends and return to the store. Feedback will help us determine their level of satisfaction in their own purchasing journey that we may never know. In the past, there have been many cases where business owners found out their customers are experiencing rudeness from some service representatives thanks to their reviews. We may also receive improvement recommendations for our products, knowing what the customers prefer in the same context, their likes and dislikes.

3. You don’t want to show how you value and respect customers’ opinions.

Almost 90% of consumers claim that they trust a business if their needs are taken a “very good” care of. Asking for feedback, active listening and trying to improve the service is how you remind customers that you value their feelings and opinions, that you focus on how to fulfil your customers’ needs and wants rather than earning profits from them. You show your customers that you are right beside them, listen to them, and act upon their interests. You include them in your business decision making process, which makes them feel important and attached to your business more.

4. Your goals do not include increasing customer retention.

Through customer feedback, you know exactly who advocates your brand and who is dissatisfied with your service. For those who are happy with your products, business owners can measure their success based on brand loyalty and enjoy customer retention. However, negative reviews are also the opportunities for you to win back your customers and increase brand positive outlook. For example, if you receive bad feedback from a customer, you respond to them in the quickest, most responsive, and considerable way while fixing the problem as soon as possible. A prompt response from the customer service department is considered to be the key point in a customer experience by 71% of consumers age from 16 to 24. By showing your effort toward your customers, you can win the customers back, and even gain better reputation and loyalty from your customer base.

5. You do not care about SEO.

It is reported that 48% of internet users will go to a business’s website if they have read a positive review about it. Good online impressions generated from reviews will make people browse your website longer and more often, which leads to higher Google rankings and lower bounce rate. Moreover, content from each and every review will leave more keywords for Google to position your business, resulting in higher rankings for your own keywords and better Clickthrough Rate.

6. You don’t take advantage of WOM to acquire new customers.

Word of Mouth is by far the most powerful factor influencing the purchase decision of a customer and it is spreading faster with the help of technology. 88% of consumers trust reviews as personal recommendations (even more influential than that from family and friends) while 86% of them hesitate to buy if the store has negative online reviews. Since most consumers rely heavily on data from other consumers through customer feedback, you should have your customers easily access to positive reviews while responding wisely to negative feedback.

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If you can not relate to any of the 6 reasons above explaining why you should not gather reviews, then on the contrary, you absolutely do need them to grow your business. In case you want to start working on collecting valuable feedback right here right now, don’t worry. Here are our 7 suggestions on how to assemble customer feedback.

How to generate customer feedback

1. Post purchase feedback

An effective method to gain the most accurate customer feedback is right after the customers have just bought your products or experienced your service. At this time, consumers are having the best memorization and highest emotional investment in your products.

2. Do a formal survey

To do a formal survey, you can send your questionnaire via emails of your subscribers, do traditional interviews in-person on the streets or set up a survey kiosk at your POS. The down side for this method is it often takes a lot of time and resources.

3. Gain feedback through social media and offer incentives

57% of the world population nowadays are social media users. The quickest way to approach consumers and gain instant results is through a quick informal survey on social media platforms. Consumers are more likely to answer a short poll on Instagram story, a time-free survey link on Facebook status or Twitter rather than a traditional survey.

4. Rewards/Giveaway/Contests

By giving out incentives as another motivation, you are attracting a lot more consumers to do your survey. However, if you have enough resources, try to run contests on social media channels. On the way of collecting feedback, the contests also help you higher brand awareness and customer engagement.

5. Feedback box

Leaving a live chat on your website with the support of chatbots and customer service scripts will increase the likelihood that consumers will open up and share their experience. A feedback email box also shows that you are always eager to listen and learn from criticism and growth.

6. Analyze recorded sales call

Tracing back to recorded sales calls is a smart method to analyze what your potential customers expect from your products, their first thoughts and feelings about our services. Their first impressions might leave us many surprising insights in their journey of purchasing.

7. Create Online community

Some of the ways to organize an online community and foster WOM is to create a Facebook social group, a forum on the Internet or use other e-commerce platforms that have the reviewing function such as Amazon or Yelp.

Post purchase feedback: Pikapoint can help

At the end of the day, gathering feedback is not an easy feat. Unless you give out insatiable incentives or some major issues happen, it is likely that you will receive very little direct feedback. You have to wait for returning orders, reviews about serious issues, or analyze messages and phone calls on your own to know your consumers’ expensive thoughts. It consumes so much effort, time and resources to do so, yet we are still not sure about the validity of the data. Do not worry! Pikapoint is built to solve this problem as we take advantage of post-purchase feedback.

Every time a customer uses your product and every time he or she redeems points, Pikapoint will send them a review form asking for their opinions. The good/positive/satisfied reviews will be directly linked and updated to Google reviews, immediately improving your business’s rankings in Google search results, encouraging positive WOM, and boosting sales from returning customers as well as potential new ones.

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Not only does our post-purchase feedback function offer your business a chance to collect more brand awareness, traffic, sales and insights; we can also help you navigate your products, constantly improve, and grow based on the unhappy reviews. You also show your customers that you truly care about them as their opinions matter to you. Bonding with customers has never been this easy.

Honestly, we wish nothing but the best for the consumers and your business. We always believe in the concept of win-win where both sides are happy. That’s why we choose collecting feedback as one of the most important functions in Pikapoint. Come on board with us and start receiving customer feedback today!