Want to gather customer feedback, but not sure how to get started? In this post I will tell you why collecting feedback is important and share 3 different ways to do it.

Why should you collect customer feedback?

 published in the Harvard Business Review found that simply the act of asking your customers for feedback made them more profitable and increased their loyalty. So just by asking for feedback you can reduce churn and make your customers more profitable.

Gathering customer feedback is also the first step in the 

 which helps you build better products and grow your customer base. In other words, it will help you grow your business. 

There are two basic types of surveys used to solicit customer feedback.

Transactional surveys that are triggered by your customer's actions. These are typically short surveys that ask a specific question related to the action that the customer took. This could be a widget on your site that pops up and asks the customer about a specific functionality that they just used, an automatic email that is sent after a customer has churned to ask them why, or a NPS survey.

Relational surveys where you decide when and what to send to which customers. These are typically longer surveys where you are digging into a specific topic that you want to understand better. There are many tools to help you set up and run a survey such as SurveyMonkey or Qualtrics. 

Keep it short and simple. Only ask questions relevant to your goal.

Start with an introduction that explains why you're running the survey.

Survey questions should be closed-ended and neutral. Asking leading questions in a survey is not a good look. Ask for one thing at a time and make sure you don't confuse respondents.

Answer choices should be logical and balanced. If you're asking whether they agree with a statement, the answer choices could be on a scale between strongly agree and strongly disagree.

Run through your survey before you send it out. Ideally run through it several times and ask other people to run through it as well.

There are many resources where you can read up on how to design and run a survey. I find the SurveyMonkey content useful, such as 

7 practical steps to create an effective survey

Customer interviews are a great way to gather feedback. The main trick to it, in my view, is to not ask the customers for feedback specifically, instead you want to have an open discussion where you  gather their feedback along the way. Some best practices to running a customer interview

Start with some small talk to build rapport with the customer.

Use open-ended questions and neutral questions. Make sure you're actively listening to the customer and guiding the interview based on the information that they tell you. Use neutral questions and beware of leading the customer.

Use probing questions to go deeper into interesting points that come up, such as "tell me more about that" or "can you help me understand that better".

A feedback page is a specific page where you ask your customers to share their feedback. It allows you to collect and prioritize all feedback in one place, as well as communicate directly with your customers to ask questions and let them know the actions you're taking based on their input. 

 is a feedback page tool, read more about 

 for an example. Best practices for running a feedback page:

When you first set up the page, add some initial feedback that you're already aware of so that your page is not empty.

Share the page with your customers. A few different ways to do this: 

Add a "Give Feedback" link to your page footer.

Send an email to your customers telling them about your feedback page.

Direct customers that contact you with feedback on Twitter, Facebook or other channels to your feedback page.

Share the page with your internal teams. Ask all your customer facing teams, such as customer success and sales, to add the feedback they receive to the feedback page.

Be active on the page to engage with your customers and ask clarifying questions to make sure you understand the feedback.

Use the status fields (planned, in progress & completed) to let the customers know the action you're taking based on their input. When you add a status to the feedback post, it's automatically added to your public product roadmap, see 

Gathering customer feedback is crucial and will help you grow your business. Just by asking for feedback, you can increase your customer retention. Get started collecting feedback today by reaching out to a customer for an interview, sending out a survey, or setting up your  own feedback page.

3 ways to collect customer feedback using surveys, customer interviews and feedback page

Collecting customer feedback is important and will help you grow your business. Gather customer feedback through surveys, customer interviews and feedback page. 

Customer feedback: why it's important & 3 ways to start collecting feedback today

Are you getting back to your customers about the feedback that they have given you? If not, you have a broken customer feedback loop. Creating a customer feedback loop is key to building better products and retaining your customers. In this post, I will explain what a customer feedback loop is and why it's important.

The customer feedback loop has four steps

Review feedback. Analyze and prioritize the feedback that you receive. Make a decision on what action to take.

Take action. Implement the decision that you have made.

Follow-up with your customers. Get back to your customers to let them know the decision and changes that you have made based on their feedback. Let them know that you are listening and taking action based on their input. Even if you decide not to take action based on their feedback, get back to them and let them know why. One way of communicating planned changes to your product is using a 

Closing the customer feedback loop by completing all four steps is key. If you complete step 1 to 3, but don't follow up with your customers, you are leaving a lot of value on the table.

Why is the customer feedback loop important?

The customer feedback loop executed well will give you more satisfied and loyal customers which will drive your business growth through higher customer retention. Customer retention is key as "

acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one

". The last thing you want to do is spent a lot of money acquiring new customers only to have them churn.

The customer feedback loop helps you retain your customers for two main reasons.

Build a better product by listening to your customers. Gather feedback from your customers, review it, and take action to improve your product. Make sure you are making improvements to your product that add value for your customers. If you build a better product, your customers are more likely to stay.

Customer feedback is typically a one-way street where the customers leave feedback and never hear back from the product team. If you instead follow up with your customers and take action based on the feedback that they give you, they will feel valued and heard. They are also more likely to engage with you.

A better product along with happier and more engaged customers will help you keep the customers you have. Be smart about customer feedback to reduce your churn.

The customer feedback loop can also help you acquire new customers. 

If you build a great product for customers that are happy and feel engaged, they are likely to recommend your product to others as well. This is a great way to get new customers. Track how likely your current customers are to recommend your product to others using an NPS survey.

Few businesses manage customer feedback well. Use this to your advantage by creating a positive and unique experience for your customers by both listening to their feedback and taking action based on their input. If you execute well on the customer feedback loop, you can keep more of the customers you have and also get new customers through recommendations which will drive results and grow your business.

Customer feedback loop to gather feedback, review feedback, take action and follow-up

The customer feedback loop is key to building better products as well as happy and engaged customers

Customer feedback loop - what it is and why it's important?

We are happy to announce that you may now share a public roadmap with your customers using Convas. The public product roadmap is an easy way for you to show your customers feedback that is planned, currently being worked on, or recently completed.

We hope that the product roadmap feature will help reduce the number of incoming queries that you and your support team receive from enthusiastic customers. It's a great way to keep your most engaging customers informed and happy, without much extra effort from you.

If you don't know what Convas is read more 

The product roadmap will automatically show all feedback posts that are either Planned, In Progress, or recently Completed. It's that simple. 

Take a look at how our product roadmap looks at 

Please share your feedback on the product feature roadmap with us, any thoughts or concerns are welcome. Just go to our 

Public product roadmap showing customer feedback organized by status

We are happy to announce that you may now share a roadmap with your customers using Convas. The roadmap is an easy way for you to show your customers feedback that is planned, currently being worked on, or recently completed.

Back to Blog.

Product roadmap - New feature on Convas

How does the public roadmap work?

Feedback on the roadmap feature

Plug: Convas, a feedback page for your company

More Stories

Customer feedback: why it's important & 3 ways to start collecting feedback today

Customer feedback loop - what it is and why it's important?