Back in college, one of my marketing teachers told us a story about how feedback from a customer saved a company. It all supposedly happened way back before feedback forms could be quickly created by an online form builder like today. That anecdote stuck in my brain and I never forgot how feedback is important, in life and in business.
Interpreting Customer feedback
“My car doesn’t like vanilla ice-cream”
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The story became known as “my car doesn’t like vanilla ice-cream”. That was the opening line of the feedback letter (yes – letter - handwritten on paper and then posted) that the customer sent to General Motors, to complain about a malfunction of his brand new Pontiac car.
At first, his feedback was dismissed and labeled as something silly or crazy.
The customer then sent a second letter, detailing the unusual car problem he was having: every night he would drive to the ice-cream store with his family and whenever they bought vanilla ice cream, the car engine wouldn’t restart, but with all other flavors it would be fine.
The company executives were then intrigued and sent an engineer to assess the situation. The engineer confirmed that the car problem was true as described by the customer feedback, and upon further analysis, was able to explain the mystery.
As it turns out, whenever the customer bought vanilla ice-cream, it would take less than five minutes for him to head back, while the car engine was still too hot. But because other flavors took longer to be chosen, the car engine had time to cool off.
Thanks to that customer feedback, General Motors was able to identify and fix the vapor lock problem (which was causing fuel to dissipate as vapor), to all of their cars from that point on.
Value Feedback As Sound Business Strategy
The lesson learned here is that companies can never afford to ignore customer feedback.
Feedback can improve products and services, or even more important, prevent issues that can potentially jeopardize businesses.
Considering that only one out of 26 customers will bother to give their feedback, you must establish a channel to hear them out. An online feedback form will encourage customers to give you input that can potentially transform your business.
What are feedback forms?
Before defining what feedback form is, let’s break that down for a sec. You might think is pretty clear what feedback means but are you sure you can identify actual feedback?
Things can be foggy, especially if you do not offer a proper channel to collect customer feedback, like a feedback form. My point is that even no feedback can be feedback.
Low website traffic is feedback. Customers only purchasing your product when it’s on sale is also feedback. Overbooking an event is also feedback. An increasing customer returns rate is also feedback.
Are you catching my drift?
All of these customer behaviors mean something but you won’t know exactly what is causing them if they aren’t telling you why. You could guess what it is or you can invite them to tell you.
For instance, you might find out that they are not interested; or that your website is not engaging; that your product is too expensive; that you should book a bigger room for an event; or simply, that your product is defective.
By definition, customer feedback is any information provided by customers about their experience with a product or service.
It can be positive, negative, or neutral.
But only a proper feedback form will provide accurate input and objective insight that can be indeed used for improvement.
So why are feedback forms important?
As we’ve seen in the story I’ve shared in the introduction of this article, a SINGLE customer feedback can transform a business. That’s how vital it is for a business sustained growth.
Regardless of how big your business is, only you know how much time and money was invested in creating a product or a service. You might think your offer is great, ingenious, life-changing even, but only users can actually attest to your claims.
Customer feedback are much cheaper and simpler than costly and complex marketing research (that can be still conducted if you’re looking for specific information, of course).
But the key difference here is that customer feedback are spontaneous and voluntary, not guided or induced, therefore highly valuable.
Facilitate Customer Feedback Process
So unless you are a mind reader, you’ll only know what can be improved or fixed in your business if people spell it out for you.
And you better make that job easy and convenient for them.
You do not want customers wasting time looking for ways to reach you. Nor being coy at it to the point that customers might think you’re not sincerely interested in hearing of what they have to say about your business.
Now considering all that, an online feedback form nicely displayed on your website so customers can fill it out at their own convenience seems like the smartest approach, isn’t it?
Even smarter for you, because when you create a feedback form with an online form builder like MightyForms, you can easily automate and track all input.
Simple and friendly for customers, fast and efficient for you.
Benefits of Online Feedback Forms
In the customer story I shared in the beginning, I pointed out the fact that the customer took time and effort to actually write a feedback on a l e t t e r.
It might have been the only resource back then, perhaps there are a few people who still prefer this form of contact even today.
Some customers prefer making a phone a call or sending an email. Heck, some will even burst the doors to tell you in person how unhappy they are with your business.
And although every customer feedback should be welcomed and duly noted, regardless of how it is given, a feedback form is the most effective.
Encourage customer feedback behavior
A study conducted by Market Force found out that 83% of all consumers had answered at least one survey during a year. Proving that when given the proper platform, customers will most likely give their feedback.
The online feedback form in itself will already make customers feel heard and acknowledged.
Not only a dedicated and specific channel for feedback is being provided, but also, customers will know there’s a process behind it. That their opinion will be computed, documented, and ideally, answered.
Which is not always the case with phone calls, emails, or in-person visits.
In fact, let me highlight all of the main benefits of gathering data from an online feedback form:
- Improve existing products and services;
- Fix issues and solve problems faster and more accurately;
- Gather input for product development;
- Measure customer satisfaction;
- Guide team management;
- Encourage customer loyalty and engagement;
- Back up business decisions;
- Learn about your target audience, build loyalty and reduce churn;
- Enhance Customer Experience;
- Optimize website experience;
- Build a strong brand reputation, earn positive reviews and testimonials
How to Create a Feedback Form – Step by Step
Welcoming any customer feedback in any format is just well founded business ethics.
However, creating an online feedback form with a form builder like MightyForms, will not only allow you to create a channel to receive them, but also to establish an automated feedback process.
First of all, MightyForms is a very straightforward, intuitive, and easy tool to build responsive feedback forms either from scratch or from a template. You can choose any fields needed, and then customize every element of the form to suit your needs.
But the real jackpot with MightyForms is that you can create and automate a process for feedback management.
Set up a success message to be sent automatically right after a customer submits their feedback form. Then add a customized message to let them know that a customer representative will get back in 24 hours, for example.
And because customer feedback can be time-sensitive, you can set up notifications so you or anyone in your team is warned whenever a form has been submitted. Just in time to gain that customer’s trust again.
Better yet, all data gathered will be safely stored or seamlessly exported and integrated to other platforms, like Google Sheets for instance, for further analysis and measurement.
Creating a Feedback Form – Quick Tutorial
Step 1. MightyForms Login
1.1 Go to the MightyForms app site and log in either by creating an account or using an existing Google or Facebook.
Step 2. Create a New Form
2.1 MightyForms is a very flexible online form builder. Click on Create New Form from the main dashboard. You can choose how would like to start creating your feedback form, either From Scratch or From a Template.
2.2. For this tutorial, let’s build our feedback form from a template, which has been pre-formatted and optimized already for this purpose. Click on the first drop-down menu on your left-hand top corner. Scroll down the options and click on Feedback Forms.
2.3. From this menu, you can choose from three free templates. Let’s click on Feedback Survey for Services for this tutorial.
2.4. You’ll see a preview of the feedback form template chosen. Click on Use This Template to confirm your choice.
Step 3. Edit Your Form
3.1. This is a builder dashboard where you can fully customize any element. Resize, reshape or reposition any field. You can add any element from dragging and dropping fields from the left-hand menu to your form. Also, you can click on any field and edit text.
3.2. Click on Design in order to add your touches to color, font, background, buttons, etc. You can also choose a Theme from the menu on your left and then click Apply.
Step 4. Settings
4.1. Once you’re done with your feedback form editing and design, you can click on Settings for advanced options. From this menu, you can either set up automatic notifications, integrate your form to other platforms, apply Logic Rules for the order of questions, or even enable Recaptcha to avoid spam.
Below you can see my settings for enabling an automatic Success Message to be sent after every feedback form submission.
Step 5. Preview, Save & Publish
5.1. Now that you have edited your feedback form and chosen advanced settings options to create an automated workflow, you can click on Preview. You will be shown how your feedback form will look and perform on any device (desktop, tablet or phone). Also, you’ll be able to share it with anyone for final adjustments or approval.
5.2. The final step is to name your feedback form project, so it will be easier to find it from main dashboard. Simply type in the name you’d prefer on the top left-hand field. Then click on Save & Publish to have it ready to be embedded into your website.
Which questions should be included in a feedback form?
I just know you’ll love building your feedback form with MightyForms, but don’t get carried away. Otherwise, you’ll transform your feedback form into long and inquisitive research, resulting in discouraging customers to fill it out.
Feedback forms should collect information about the utmost importance only.
You can always probe them more later if they agree to it. At first, you should aim for questions that will render the most actionable data.
Now you should decide if you want a generic feedback form, with open questions or if you want to conduct something specific. You can also mix the two approaches and offer a multiple-choice questionnaire as well.
Here are ten essential questions to ask your customers:
1-Contact information and how they would like to be contacted;
2-How did they find your company;
3-Rate overall experience with your website;
4-Describe experience with a product or service;
5-What have they liked the most and the least;
6-If they would recommend your business to friends;
7-If they would purchase again from you;
8-If product/service met expectations;
9-What makes you stand out from the competition;
10-How can an experience, product or service be improved
The takeaway lesson here is that ultimately, customers want to voice their opinion. They want to do so in a convenient, pleasant, and perhaps, fun way. They want to feel reassured they their feedback was proactively asked, welcomed, and acknowledged into action. That their opinion not only matters but can transform your business.
You’ll be surprised by how easy it is to accomplish all that when creating feedback forms with MightyForms online form builder. Go on and impress your customers right away!
