Let's learn how these best practices can be really helpful in Closing the Customer Feedback Loop and thus help in enhancing Customer Satisfaction.

Tip 1

Acknowledge and thank the Customers

The information about the Customers' experiences with your products and services is a real treasure which you are getting in the form of Customer Feedback. So always acknowledge your customers that you have received their feedback and convey them that it actually matters for you and is considered valuable.

Do thank the customers for their feedback. Sending of automated mails and messages can do this work for you, but as stated above also, you need not stop here. This is just the first step in the process of Closing the feedback loop.

Tip 2

Centralize your Customer Feedback

Always keep your Customer Feedback on a centralized location in a well-managed way rather than scattering it across numerous spreadsheets. However, you can group your feedback among various types to create an effective repository for future reference.

There are now good Customer Feedback Software and apps that help you in this purpose. They enable you to know only keep your Customer Feedback safe but also provide make meaningful analysis reports out of them.

Tip 3

Address Immediate Issues first

All Customer Feedback should be responded as soon as possible but there are certain issues which are necessary to be addressed immediately. For instance, you are a company providing IT services to organizations and you have a client which is a bank and its server has suddenly been down.

In such a case, you cannot follow on First come first serve basis and keep addressing other feedback that can be addresses afterwards. You have to address this issue immediately and provide assistance to make the things up and running for the client as soon as possible.

So, you should set such a feedback mechanism that immediate feedback can be addressed first. You should use a good Customer Feedback Software that can help you to do so by providing instant alerts and notifications for feedback and negative feedback.

Tip 4

Keep customers informed about the progress

Don't confine the process of Closing the Feedback loop to just responding to a feedback after getting it or sending a short mail only after completing the required action. You must keep the customers informed as well about the progress of their work.

This will not only assure the customers that their feedback has been taken but also keep their calm and patience alive as they would get to know the progress on each and every step. Whereas, if you start doing work on their feedback which would take let's say a time of ten days, but do not inform them of the progress, these ten days would frustrate your customers even more.

50% of consumers give a brand only one week to respond to a question before they stop doing business with them. So it is better to keep the customers informed about the progress of your actions on their feedback.

Tip 5

Empathize and apologize wherever required

When you see there is some negative feedback from your customers, deal with it empathically. Apologize them for the bad Customer Experience they had with you and ask them where and how things went wrong. Let them open up and tell you what they feel for you an your brand.

Investigate their issues and if you find a fault at your side, never try to cover that up. Rather, accept the mistake, apologize and work immediately on the counter actions required. Even if you find that it was something which was out of your control, empathize with the customers, understand their concerns and try to help them as far as possible.

Keep in mind that the customers remember how you assist them when they need you the most. This increases their loyalty and you are able to even convert your detractors into promoters if you Close the Feedback loop properly.

Tip 6

Set Customer Expectations about time and action

When the customers provide you their feedback, they should be confident enough that their precious time of filling a feedback survey or providing their insights is not wasted. They should know that their feedback is taken care of. For this purpose, companies set up automated emails and messages conveying the gratitude and telling them that their feedback will be taken care of.

But this is not enough. You need to tell them, when you will look into their feedback and by how much time will you respond or fix the things up for them. It is a very good practice to set the right expectations about the time taken to work on a feedback and the actions to be performed on that feedback.

Tip 7

Say "No" rather than fake promises

Every customer is different. Different people perceive your actions differently and so they provide different feedback and a variety of ideas. But you cannot follow everybody's suggestions, can you? So, its okay to say "No" to some of them which don't suit your brand.

It is anyhow much better than giving false hopes and making fake promises to the customers which will break their trust on the brand which is hard to gain. So, its okay to say No. Customers also understand that you cannot implement every idea given by every person.