“Satisfied customer is the best source of advertisement.” – G.S. Alag
Let’s be honest: customer feedback was, is and will be important to the development of your business. Why? Well, the truth is, the purpose of any business was, is and will be to fulfill customers’ needs by
– Providing the best customer service possible
– Helping customers solve their problems.
Only by meeting these requirements can a business flourish.
Now, here’s an important question for you: are your customers happy about your products and services? To find out what they think about your product or service and to ensure your company’s constant development, you need to gather feedback from them. Often. This way you can not only improve your products and services but also strengthen customer-brand relationships.
Of course, there are many ways you can gather customer feedback, such as by phone or email. You can also search for people’s opinions about your business on a review site or on discussion forums. However, although these strategies can be effective, they can be time-consuming for you. Collecting customer feedback on social media, on the other hand, is easy and quick for you as well as fun for your customers.
Here’s Why You Should Collect Customer Feedback On Social Media
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are three social channels that are best known for collecting feedback from customers. Here’s why:
1. Each of the platforms has a lot of monthly active users – Facebook: 2.32 billion; Twitter: 321 million; Instagram: 1 billion. That’s a large audience.
2. Many people follow businesses on social media. For example, 80% of Instagram accounts follow at least one business and a number of Facebook users are brand fans. Also, an average user on Twitter follows five businesses. This implies that social media users like receiving posts from brands.
3. Users interact with brands on social media. In fact, here, Instagram is the leader. According to statistics, brands can generate 4 times more interactions on Instagram than on other platforms.
Social media is a perfect place to talk to your customers and figure out what they think about your products and services. But, how can you do that? Well, there are a few easy ways that you can try:
#1 Ask a Question in a Post
Although a picture is worth a thousand words, when you make a post, which is 100% visual and has no call to action, you make people guess what they should do after looking at your image. What most people will do is hit the like button and scroll down. While it’s okay to post images and videos about your products and services on social media without any text now and then, if you want to spark a conversation, you need to do more than that. When your objective is to collect feedback from your customers, you need to take it a step further and add an engaging caption. A great way to do this is by adding a question along with your post.
Take a look at how Tupperware U.S. & Canada does this on Facebook:
Make sure the image (or video) and the question in your post is somehow connected and complement one another. Don’t use irrelevant stock photos, GIFs, or funny videos found online. Create your own content instead and ensure it’s relevant to the subject matter.
#2 Check Your Customers’ Comments
How often do you read comments under your posts? Let me guess what you want to say now, “I tried, but I gave up.” Is that right? If yes, I understand you. Viewing all comments (especially if you receive hundreds) and managing them can be tough.
However, if you don’t read your customers’ comments on social media platforms, you can miss out on vital information, such as, whether or not your customers like your products and services, what they think about them, or if they have any problems about placing an order or using items they purchased. Look at this post from Samsung Mobile on Twitter and check how much you can learn from people’s comments:
Now, if you don’t provide your customers with help, support, and answers, you will not only fail to figure out if everything’s fine with your products or services but also, leave a bad impression on your customers. After all, would you buy products from a brand that neither cares about your opinion nor replies to your comments? Not really, am I right?
Thus, make sure you read comments under your posts. Do it often. Also, if you find managing comments on Instagram or other platforms difficult, try using special tools.
#3 Be Smart When Creating Participation Requirements for Your Contests
Social media contests have a number of benefits: they boost online engagement, can help you grow your email list, and even inspire virality. Another added benefit is that they can also help you collect customer feedback. How? Well, it all depends on what you choose to write in the “participation requirements” section. Take a look at this contest on Instagram:
For example, look at the example here — its purpose is to increase engagement, boost the number of followers, and reach more people. If you want to use this contest to gather customer feedback, all you have to do is to add other participation requirements, such as:
– “Comment what you think about…”
– “Tell us what you think about… in the comments below.”
– “Answer the question: …”
#4 Use Instagram Stories
Are you taking advantage of Instagram Stories? If you aren’t already, then it’s time for you to start! Why? Well, because Instagrammers adore watching Stories and they do so every single day. Thus, thanks to Instagram Stories you can reach your customers fast, easy and in a fun and engaging way.
The Stories feature allows you to improve your business in a number of ways. You can use Stories to drive traffic to your blog, share UGC, and collect customer feedback. All you have to do is to create a Story and add a relevant sticker to it. For example, to gather customer feedback, use an interactive poll sticker. It allows you to ask your audience a question and they can vote their answers.
Here are a few examples of such polls:
#5 Search for User-generated Content about Your Brand
People love sharing their opinions with others. It does not matter if it’s going about a new product they’ve just purchased, products they’ve been using for centuries, products they are disappointed with, or products they hate. In all cases, many users are likely to share their opinion online (especially on social media platforms) because it can be useful to others, such as their family members and friends.
Now, not only your customers but their followers too have access to the reviews. This way, you can learn what others think about your brand, products, and services. All you have to do is to find relevant social media posts, such as these two on Facebook:
To find UGC (i.e. user-generated content) about your brand, simply type appropriate hashtags into the search box on social media platforms. For instance, to find posts about Faber-Castell brand, all you have to do is to search for such hashtags as #fabercastell, #fabercastellpencils, or #fabercastellpolychromos.
Conclusion
Although there are many ways to gather customer feedback, one of the best ways is to do so via a social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It’s cost-effective, easy and can be fun for your audience. Also, those platforms have millions of users worldwide and so, you won’t have problems to reach your customers and brand fans.
Do you know of any other ways you can collect customer feedback on social media platforms? If yes, share them with us in the comments below. Also, if you found this post useful, share it with your friends and followers.