Customer feedback is one of the best ways to streamline your business with data. Once you start collecting data, it can feel like improvement is inevitable.
Unfortunately, though, many businesses end up struggling to capitalize on the customer feedback they collect. Sometimes it’s because the collected feedback isn’t actionable, but more often than not, the root of the issue is a lack of direction.
In this post, we’ll cover the four most common mistakes businesses make when collecting customer feedback. By being aware of these pitfalls, you can take measures to avoid them.
1. Being biased when reviewing feedback
The first mistake businesses will want to avoid when collecting customer feedback is introducing biases into their data. Bias is something all researchers actively work to purge from their work, so the concept of a bias shouldn’t be unfamiliar to you.
If you’re new to customer research, though, you might not have any tools for reducing bias, which can cause it to infect your customer feedback.
Here are two quick strategies you can implement to start reducing the bias in your customer feedback:
Collect more feedback. Simple as it may sound, having more feedback will help you average your responses, reducing bias’s impact on your overall results.
Carefully structure your questions. When planning out what you want to ask you should make sure you’re asking what problem the customer is trying to solve and why. This helps you get to the root of the problem instead of focusing directly on a solution a user might propose. Include what and why questions like:
“What problem are you trying to solve and why?”
“Did this help you reach your outcome? Why or why not?”
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2. Turning into a “Feature Factory”
Another mistake you’ll want to avoid when collecting customer feedback is becoming a “Feature Factory.” We’ve all seen apps and products like this before: They start simple, focused, and efficient but gradually become bloated and confusing, losing sight of why people were using them in the first place.
Becoming too feature-focused is often the result of listening to your customer feedback too much. You want to consider your customers’ suggestions, but you also want to approach them with a sense of moderation.
To avoid giving in to every suggestion from your users, set your goals before collecting feedback. Decide what features you want to implement and which problems you want to solve. Then, filter through the feedback you receive that ties into these goals and use it.
3. Disjointed feedback management
This mistake can be a bit harder to address. Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with the feedback you’re collecting. Instead, the problem lies in your management and the organization of that feedback.
You will generally know intuitively if this is your issue. It can just be challenging to address as it’s a complicated problem to overcome. If you feel like you have all of the data you need, can’t pull insights from that data, and seem to be making missteps even after following customer feedback, then management issues are likely to blame.
Fortunately, solving this problem just means trying something different. Invest in new software, take lessons from other businesses, hire a new manager/researcher, and refine your process.
airfocus can help you out here. Try using our Insights app to collect and organize your customer feedback. We’ve built in all the features you need so you can understand problems and use the feedback you receive to support your product backlog decisions.
4. Keeping your feedback tucked away in a silo
Another mistake your business might be making is collecting all of the feedback you need and then doing nothing with it. This is usually the result of a lack of communication and organization.
So how do you fix it? Start communicating and organizing more! Make sure your team is letting you know when they have valuable feedback. Organize this feedback in a central location. And host meetings for your team to work through this feedback.
Sign up for airfocus’s customer feedback webinar
Want to learn more about optimizing your customer feedback process? Sign up for airfocus’ upcoming webinar! We’ll be following a Q&A format, so write your questions down and bring them to us for expert insights.
Malte Scholz
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