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How businesses can thrive by listening to their customers - from picking the right tools to seamlessly integrating them, it's a quick guide to boosting success through valuable feedback.
Table of Contents
Why do businesses need customer feedback?
Businesses want happy customers.
Because they:
Spend more & stick around longer (i.e., higher customer lifetime value)
Take less effort and money to reach or sell to (i.e., higher profit margins)
Spread the word about your business (i.e., help acquire new customers)
Ultimately, all these reap higher profits for the business and increase its market share in today's competitive market.
In theory, businesses acquire these happy customers via the sale of high-quality products or services that give customers a positive experience.
In practice, however, it is a little bit more complicated as what one person deems "high-quality" may be different from another person's expectations. In other words, quality and value are subjective.
Therefore, it is crucial to understand how your customers measure quality, what they think about your current offering, and what can be done better moving forward. Listening to users isn't just a courtesy—it's a critical tool for growth.
Listening to users isn't just a courtesy—it's a critical tool for growth.
Furthermore, as we live in increasingly globalized and digitalized times, businesses are required to engage with customers from all around the world across different devices and platforms. To help businesses in this effort, user feedback tools were created.
This article will dive into what user feedback tools are, some popular examples, their benefits, and how to effectively integrate them into your platform.
What are user feedback tools?
User feedback tools serve as a bridge between a business and its users, facilitating the exchange of user experience information.
These platforms or tools enable users to report issues, suggest improvements, and express their level of satisfaction with a service or product. Whether designed to gather qualitative data, quantitative data, or both, these tools can help the business gain actionable insights. By evaluating user sentiment and categorizing feedback, businesses can prioritize what needs immediate attention, and identify longer-term trends in user satisfaction to aid in the iterative development of a product.
Today, user feedback tools come in various forms:
surveys
feedback buttons
comment boxes
forums
Many can even be integrated directly into an app or website and can be customized to blend seamlessly with the platform's aesthetics. This provides an unobtrusive yet convenient way for users to share their thoughts any time an opinion is formed. Having real-time feedback is advantageous for businesses looking to pivot quickly based on user responses.
Regular updates informed by user input can result in enhancements that resonate with and retain the user base. The goal is to forge a product experience that evolves in tandem with its users' expectations, thereby fostering loyalty and advocacy.
Benefits of using user feedback tools
Implementing user feedback tools on a platform brings numerous advantages:
Improves customer service - Naturally, user feedback tools enhance the customer support experience. When users encounter problems, a readily available feedback tool can serve as the first line of resolution, potentially averting a ticket to customer support and allowing the business to rectify issues proactively. This preemptive approach can reduce support costs and improve customer retention over time.
Fosters Goodwill - They cultivate an environment where users feel their opinions are valued and considered, enhancing user engagement and satisfaction. When users feel their opinions matter and see the business' commitment to continuous improvement, they are more likely to be loyal and advocate for the brand.
Clarifies - User feedback tools help businesses understand the 'why' behind user behaviors. Instead of hypothesizing about drop-offs or low engagement areas, direct user input can help identify the root of these patterns. This not only reduces the time and resources spent on guesswork, but also indirectly informs marketing strategies.
💡Tip: Businesses can use Beep to receive and reply to customer feedback and improve the look and messaging of their online presence (e.g., websites, social media pages, videos, etc.). With only two clicks to share clear feedback, Beep is the fastest and easiest user feedback tool in the market that everyone can use — even by non-developers. Plus Beep's comments have an auto-screenshot feature, are easily locatable via a link, can have file attachments & screen recordings and can be shared with anyone. To try Beep out for free, visit www.justbeepit.com.
Helps development - For product managers, the user insights gathered can illuminate which features or fixes to prioritize in the development roadmap. Feedback that is consistently centered around a particular issue can spur prompt action, directly addressing users' pain points.
Top 10 User Feedback Tools
As many types and forms of user feedback tools currently exist on the market, we listed some noteworthy tools below and highlighted their unique aspects:
Beep – The fastest and easiest way to exchange visual feedback, Beep is a browser extension allowing users to effortlessly share auto-screenshot feedback from any website via an intuitive and guest-friendly platform. Trusted by over 300 teams, Beep is made especially to help digital agencies review and ship websites faster. Its asynchronous commenting feature helps streamline feedback workflows between agencies and their clients.
2. SurveyMonkey – A versatile classic for easy-to-create user surveys, SurveyMonkey is known for its extensive question library and customizable survey formats. It can also be integrated with over 100 of the most popular business platforms.
3. Qualtrics – Offering a full range of survey types coupled with predictive intelligence and statistical analysis features, Qualtrics differentiates itself as a powerful experience management (XM) software that is suited for various purposes such as market research, customer satisfaction, employee feedback and more.
4. Hotjar – Marketed as the "only product experience insights platform", Hotjar allows businesses to visualize user behavior on their websites via heatmaps & recordings of site visitors. It also allows the collection of feedback in-the-moment, via surveys & via one-on-one interviews. Hotjar is popularly used to optimize sales funnels by identifying where users tend to drop-off.
5. Typeform – A great choice for maximizing survey completion rates, Typeform's "conversational" approach to forms (i.e., displaying only one question at a time), influences more visitors to engage with their surveys.
6. Qualaroo – For businesses wanting to understand not only what their users are doing, but also why, Qualaroo is a great solution. Qualaroo has multiple feedback forms that capture user feedback throughout all customer touchpoints. It is also praised as a lightweight solution that doesn't slow down page performance.
7. UserVoice – When shaping the future of a product, UserVoice helps businesses gather user feedback on product feature ideas, and how important each are to users. Getting rid of the guesswork, UserVoice's insights helps product teams better prioritize developments on their roadmap.
8. GetFeedback – Focuses on mobile-responsive surveys to match the widespread use of smartphones and tablets. GetFeedback is a Customer Experience (CX) platform that allows businesses to collect feedback across all channels (e.g., website, email, SMS, and mobile apps)
9. Feefo – When sourcing customer reviews, Feefo goes a step further by providing an analysis tool that helps businesses identify customer trends. Businesses can also trust the relevancy and reliability of feedback as Feefo only collects reviews from verified users. Feefo helps businesses not only gather reviews, but also uses these reviews to boost sales via social proof displayed at the point of sale.
10. Zendesk – Known as one of the industry leaders in digital customer support, Zendesk pioneered the HelpDesk ticketing system which allows businesses to access feedback taken from multiple channels in one central inbox. It also comes with Zendesk Explore, a robust reporting and analytics software that helps inform business decisions based on the customer experience. However, Zendesk is notably better suited for larger businesses and also requires some time to get familiar with the software.
How to choose the right user feedback tool
Selecting the right user feedback tool for your business requires you consider:
Business' Needs - What type of feedback is most valuable for your business—are you seeking in-depth insights, or are instant, snapshot-style feedback more conducive to your goals?
User base - It's always best to meet customers where they already are. What current tools or devices do your customers use and prefer? What channels can be used to reach out and seek feedback from them?
Integration capabilities - The feedback tool you choose must integrate seamlessly with your existing platforms, such as CRMs or analytics tools, to create a cohesive data ecosystem. Ease of use for both the user providing feedback and the team analyzing it is critical to ensure consistent and valuable data collection.
Feedback specificity - Some tools offer broad, open-ended responses, while others are structured to guide users into providing more targeted feedback. Depending on the nature of the feedback you're looking for, one approach and tool may be more suitable than the other.
Budget & Scalability - These should not be overlooked, as the tool you choose should be affordable in the short term and scalable in the long term. Many tools offer tiered pricing models to accommodate growth. Tool flexibility, given the inevitability of business evolution, allows your business to adapt without the need for a constant switching of platforms.
Integrating feedback tools with your platform
Effective implementation of user feedback tools involves more than just adding a new piece of software to your suite; it's about creating an ecosystem that naturally encourages users to share their thoughts.
Here are some pointers to consider:
Intuitive - The feedback tool should disrupt the user experience as little as possible so users are more inclined to engage with it.
Prominent - In order to increase interaction, your feedback tool should also grab some attention. Prominently displayed feedback buttons or subtle yet noticeable survey prompts, can significantly increase the likelihood of users leaving feedback. Ideally, these should be context-specific, appearing at points where user engagement is naturally high or immediately after a transaction or significant interaction.
Data management - Receiving large amounts of fragmented feedback from multiple different platforms can be a nightmare to organize and take action on. Ideally, the feedback collected should flow into a central repository where it can be analyzed in the context of other user data. Not only does this aid in forming a complete picture of the user experience, it also helps make feedback more actionable.
Follow-up - Ensure that the feedback loop is closed appropriately in that users are made aware of changes or updates that occur because of their input. This transparent process reassures users that their feedback has tangible effects, reinforcing the value of their contribution to your platform.
Fuel your business with user feedback
Collecting and using customer feedback is vital to ensure businesses continue to thrive.
Each user feedback tool mentioned in this article has a unique value to offer. It is up to each business to choose the ideal solution that aligns with their specific needs and customer engagement goals.
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