Getsitecontrol Insider

6 Ways to Use Online Feedback Forms for Your Business

December 22, 2019 Getsitecontrol Episode 5
Getsitecontrol Insider
6 Ways to Use Online Feedback Forms for Your Business
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

If you're not a mind reader, the only way to know what your customers are thinking is to ask them. In this episode, we'll discuss 6 different methods to implement feedback forms and 3 proven tips to make sure you collect meaningful data from the right audience.

Among other things, you'll hear mentions of Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) - popular customer feedback surveys you may want to try. 

Here are the links with more information on them:

Here is a great post by Survey Monkey on how phrasing your questions can skew your data.

Finally, if you want to add popup surveys or floating side buttons to your website, Getsitecontrol website survey form builder is the way to go.

Don't forget to subscribe for more actionable guides and insights!

Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.

Speaker 1:

Hi, you're listening to Getsitecontrol Insider. In this episode, we'll talk about ways to collect online feedback from your customers. You'll learn six different methods to implement feedback forms and three proven tips to make sure you collect meaningful data from the right audience. Stay tuned.

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If you want to know what your customers are thinking, the only way is to ask them because you're probably not a mind reader, right? Online feedback forms help you do just that. They help you connect with your customers at the right time and place to gather meaningful feedback to improve your business. But there are a lot of different ways that you can get feedback from your customers and the method you should choose depends on what type of information you're looking to collect. Some methods like survey popups are more aggressive while others- like an after-chat feedback form are much less obtrusive.

Speaker 1:

As we go through the examples, we'll share some pros and cons of each approach. Plus, we'll briefly talk about the ways you can implement it on your site.

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Method number one: survey and feedback popups If you want to be aggressive and get feedback from as many visitors as possible, a popup might be the best option for you. There are a lot of ways to use popups to gather feedback. However, for the most effective approach, you'll want to pay special attention to timing and targeting. For example, if you're using a tool that brings the exit intent trigger, like the Getsitecontrol survey forms, you can create a website exit survey. It displays right before visitors leave and it's perfect for understanding what's causing people to abandon your site. Simply ask visitors why they are leaving and provide response options for them to select. Maybe that was not what they were looking for. Maybe the prices seemed to be too high. Maybe they got confused by product descriptions. Whatever the objections are, with an exit intent pop up, you'll be able to figure them out and adjust the messaging. Here's another idea if you're going with popups. Rather than displaying your survey on every page, you could use targeting rules to target your feedback to specific content at your site. For example, if you have an eCommerce store, you could add a popup on the order confirmation page and ask customers about their shopping experience. Basically, popups don't have to be something in your face that you display to every single visitor. Instead, you can target only the specific users you'd like to gather feedback from. Method number two: Inline/Embedded forms If you want something a little less aggressive than popups, you can consider adding an inline feedback form instead.

Speaker 1:

By inline, we mean that it appears as part of the actual content- much like a form. Inline forms make a great option if you're looking to engage with people who visit a specific page rather than gather sitewide feedback. For instance, remember the e-commerce example we talked about a minute ago? An inline form would work well here, too. If you want to ask people for feedback about their purchase, just include an embedded feedback form on your order confirmation page.

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Method number three: email messages. For the previous two methods, we focused on ways to gather feedback on your website, but you can also connect with them in their email boxes. This approach is great for surveying all of your customers because you can guarantee that everyone at least receives the message and survey specific segments either based on user profile information or user activity, like whether someone recently made a purchase or abandoned a shopping cart.

Speaker 1:

For example, Airbnb sends out a feedback form to customers via email.

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It says:"Hi, thanks for using Airbnb. We really appreciate you choosing Airbnb for your travel plans to help us improve. We'd like to ask you a few questions about your experience so far. It'll only take three minutes and your answers will help us make Airbnb better for you and other guests" And then comes the call to action button:"Take the survey". We'll get back to that example in a few minutes to see exactly why it's so good and what you may want to borrow from it. Method number four: feedback forms embedded to a live chat If you use a live chat on your website, you get a chance to gather feedback from people who engage with you. There are a couple of ways that you can go about this. First, you can wait until after a visitor engages with live chat to show them the feedback survey. Essentially it's like an after-chat survey. This makes a good option if you're specifically looking to gather feedback on the helpfulness of your live chat team. Second, you can use that same chatbox to proactively gather feedback from your visitors in a conversational manner using a chat bot. For example, a customer feedback bot by a company named Haptic can help you chat with visitors and even transfer them to live support staff based on the feedback that they provide. Method number five: side button. If you want to create a visible feedback form for all of your visitors but don't want to go as aggressive as a popup, a side tab or a floating contact button can be a great middle ground. With this approach, you create a static button that sticks to the side of your site and prompts visitors to give feedback because it's off to the side and it doesn't get in the way of a visitor's browsing experience like a popup would. But here's one thing you should remember if you're going with a side feedback button. While it's good to avoid annoying your visitors, it's important to understand that using unobtrusive forms like this can bias the feedback that you receive towards the extremes, either positive or negative. Basically by making the feedback form unobtrusive, you're also making it so that only motivated customers seek out the feedback form. Typically, people are only motivated when they've had an extreme experience, either very good or very bad. On the other hand, a more aggressive popup, for example, lets you proactively reach all visitors, including people who just had a normal experience and otherwise wouldn't be motivated to share their opinion. There's no right or wrong here. It's just important to keep in mind when you create your online feedback forms.

Speaker 1:

Method number six: social media

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Your own website or email newsletter isn't the only spot where you can gather feedback from users. Most social media sites now include built-in polling survey functionality to help you gather information from your audience. Both Twitter and Facebook enable you to create quick polls for your audience. Now, because of the public nature of these polls and the fact that you can only ask a single question, you probably don't want to rely on social media for in depth customer feedback, but for a one-off question about something general, it can be great. For example, if you have a blog or a YouTube channel, you could ask your fans what piece of content they'd like to see next. That way you can"pre-test" your content ideas before investing in them. For real world example, consider Oakland Raiders, an American football team who polled their fans on Twitter about what type of video content they want to see.

Speaker 1:

Now, before we wrap up this episode, let's walk through three quick tips for implementing feedback forms properly. Whether you choose to use a popup, an email survey, or a side button, there are some best practices you might want to consider.

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Tip#1: Know why you're asking for feedback. Getting feedback is not a goal in itself. Instead, you need to think about what specifically you're hoping to gain from your feedback forms. Are you looking to improve your customer service, create a better checkout process? Gauge customer satisfaction? Shape your content strategy? There is no single right answer here, but you need to put some time into figuring out what the end goal is for the feedback that you collect, and you might even want to reflect that in the feedback form description, too. Tip#2: Pay attention to the questions you ask. The actual questions that you ask are going to play a big role in the responses that you get. There are tons of research on how the way you phrase your questions can skew your data either positively or negatively. We'll link to one great article in that in the description. If you're not sure what type of you should ask, you can turn to premade feedback forms. For example, if you're trying to gauge general customer satisfaction instead of creating your own feedback form from scratch, you can use standard customer feedback surveys like customer satisfaction score(CSAT), net promoter score(NPS), customer effort score(CES). You'll find links to all of them in the episode description. Tip#3: Tell people how long the survey will take(and ease them in for long surveys). If you're running a simple survey or poll, this tip isn't that relevant, but if you're creating more in-depth feedback forms, you'll want to let people know how long they can expect to spend on filling them out. By properly setting expectations, you increase the chance that people will be willing to take precious time out of their days to share their thoughts and suggestions. For example, if you go back to that Airbnb email feedback message from before, you can see how Airbnb specifically tells recipients that it will only take around three minutes. Additionally, for longer surveys, start with some easy, simple questions. As Giuseppe Larossi recommends in his book"The power of survey design", you should start simple to build up confidence in the surveys objective. If you are ready to start collecting feedback from your customers, there are dozens of tools available out there. It all depends on what type of feedback survey you're looking to implement. And if you're planning to add side buttons and popups to your website first, Getsitecontrol might be exactly what you need. You'll be able to create all types of feedback forms and use targeting rules to make sure your surveying the right customers. Check out the link in the description and give it a try for free. This is it for the episode. You've been listening to Getsitecontrol Insider. Don't forget to subscribe. Until next time!

Six Types of Online Feedback Forms You Can Use
Method #1. Survey and feedback popups
Method #2. Inline/Embedded forms
Method #3. Email messages
Method #4. Feedback forms embedded to a live chat
Method #5. Side button
Method #6. Social media
Tip #1. Know why you're asking for feedback
Tip #2. Pay attention to the questions you ask
Tip #3. Tell people how long the survey will take (and ease them in for long surveys)