Gather Timely Feedback From Your Customers (Without Having to Breathe Into a Paper Bag)

Do you feel nervous when you think about trying to ask your clients or customers for feedback?

You’re in good company. Very few business owners find this process pleasant at first.

But here’s the thing:

The best marketing tool you have is positive feedback from your previous clients.

People who are thinking about buying from you want to be reassured that your product or service can get results – and that’s where reviews and testimonials come in.

Once you have feedback from your clients or customers, you can use in variety of ways in your marketing materials. You can use it in your:

• Web pages.
• Blog posts.
• Printed materials, like business cards or flyers.
• Sales pages.
• Email sequences.
• Social media campaigns.

We know that customer feedback is valuable – but we don’t usually get it from our clients on a regular basis, because the process can often feel uncomfortable or icky.

But the process can be simpler (and a heck of a lot less stressful) than you think.

Why You Must Make It Easy to Gather Reviews and Testimonials

Human beings are, on the whole, incredibly lazy.

When given the option, we’ll often put tasks off for long as possible – and that’s why you need to make it as easy as possible for your customers to provide feedback for your business.

Reduce or eliminate any friction the customer might experience during this process. That means anything that might make the person say, “I’ll do this later.”

Because as we all know, “Later” usually turns into “Never” for most of us, because we’re buried in tasks and stuff to juggle all day, every day.

You also have to streamline your own feedback process, so you’re not wrestling with own self-doubt and anxiety every time you reach out and ask for people’s thoughts.

So let’s talk about the two ways to get frictionless feedback from your clients.

The Two Quick-and-Easy Ways to Get Feedback

Method #1: Use an online, automated feedback-gathering tool.

Automated feedback tools offer a huge advantage, if they work with your business model.

As a business owner, using an automated tool to collect feedback means you don’t have to think about making the request, because the process happens without you having to lift a finger.

Want to know how this works? Here’s a great example I witnessed recently:

Last week, I visited a new hairdresser on the recommendation of a friend. Mallory gave me a great cut, and she was personable and easy to talk to.

About an hour after my appointment, I got an automated email from Mallory, asking me about my experience. Here’s that email:

When I clicked on the “Yes!” button in the email, it sent me straight to an online feedback form that let me rate the experience on a scale of 1 to 5, then add some comments.

I rated Mallory with five stars, then added some glowing comments saying how happy I was with my cut, and with my new stylist. I clicked “Submit.”

The entire process took about a minute, and I did it all from my phone. My glowing statement was short and sweet, but she could have used it word-for-word on her website as a client testimonial.

Mallory didn’t have to call, email, or ask me personally for this feedback – it all happened automatically, and she didn’t even have to think about it.

Mallory uses her scheduling tool, SchedulingSeat, to send these automated follow-up requests after a client has an appointment, so highly recommend checking to see if there’s a similar tool in your industry.

You can also check out this list of online feedback tools for additional some ideas.

Method #2: Send the client an email that includes a link to a 3-question questionnaire.

You can use Google Forms or SurveyMonkey (both are free) to create a fast, easy-to-complete client questionnaire. Setting up your questionnaire should only take a few minutes, and it will be an asset you’ll be able to use over and over again.

Here are the instructions for creating a survey with SurveyMonkey.

Here’s how you can use Google Forms to create your own questionnaire.

Don’t ask for too much feedback on your questionnaire. Keep it focused and concise, and ask straightforward questions. Remember that every question you add to this questionnaire will decrease the amount of people who will finish filling it out and returning it – so keep the entire thing short.

In your “feedback invitation” email, make it clear to your client that filling out the questionnaire will only take a few minutes, so they knows they’re not going to need to commit a lot of time.

If you can honestly say, “This process will only take you five minutes,” then include that text in the email!

Your goal is to make the entire process sound as frictionless and painless as possible for your customer.

If you’re going to use this emailed questionnaire method, you’ll either need to have an autoresponder (automated email) that sends the email at the right time, or you’ll need to send the message manually. If it’s the latter, I recommending having a checklist for your client projects or your sales process, so you’ll remember to send it out when it’s the right time to ask for feedback.

Bonus points to you if you can have your virtual assistant handle this task for you. If you ask someone else to send the survey, you’ll lower the risk of hesitating to hit “send” because you feel weird or smarmy asking for feedback.

Your VA can just add the task to their client checklist, then cross it off when it’s done. Easy peasy.

If you really, really don’t want to create a survey using one of the tools above, you can also send your customer the questions right in the text of the email. If you decide to do this, you can use TextExpander to create a script that you can quickly and easily insert into an email anytime you need to. That way, you don’t have to keep re-typing your questions.

That said, I really recommend using one of the survey tools above – it’s easier for your clients, and you’ll be able to see all your feedback in one place once you collect it.

An Easy (and Stress-Free) Feedback Loop

Before they hand over their hard-earned dollars, your potential customers want to know that other people have been delighted with your products or services – and the best way of communicating that is by using testimonials and reviews from other clients.

But you can’t use customer feedback if you can’t get it out of your customers. That’s why making this process simple (for them, and for you) is so critical.

Let your satisfied clients speak for you by giving them easy ways to provide valuable feedback in just a few clicks of the mouse. Pretty soon, you’ll be swimming in glowing testimonials.