Sourcing valuable customer reviews for a product can be challenging. Get the timing, channel or message wrong, and you run the risk of getting undifferentiated or unhelpful feedback or no feedback at all.
Take advantage of these five tips, and you’ll have a better chance of collecting more reviews and worthwhile feedback.
Tip No. 1: Target the right customers
Before you set out to collect reviews, take a second. What do you want to know and what are you going to use this feedback for? You, of course, want to know how your consumers feel about your products. But you should go beyond that and finalize the goals this feedback will help you achieve. That will also help you better understand who to approach and ask to review your products.
For example, IT professionals who use your product might not know about the various features, but they can speak to your customer service and implementation process. It’s a good idea to consider what kind of feedback you’re looking for and what type of customer will be able to provide it before setting out to collect reviews.
What will you do with this information once you get it? That brings us to the next tip.
Tip No. 2: Ask questions with a purpose
Once you know what you’re looking for in your feedback, you can ask your buyers more specific questions.
Avoid asking broad questions that yield broad results and may cause additional steps as you try to sift through information to get what’s actually relevant. You also don’t want to alienate the consumer and make them feel like their time is being wasted. Oracle’s Shawn Myers told attendees at Gartner Marketing Symposium/XpoTM that 73% of U.S. adults online say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide a good online customer experience.
Asking pointed questions with a purpose is beneficial to both you and your consumers, and builds your relationship with each other. But where do you direct these questions?
Tip No. 3: Determine the efficacy of different channels for collecting customer feedback
Search is the most frequently used digital channel along the entire B2B buying journey, says Gartner (full report available to Gartner clients), as it plays a dominant role in the early, middle and late stages of the purchase process. Take a look at this example breakdown of site traffic in B2B manufacturing: