How to Increase Customer Loyalty by Gathering Feedback?

Customer loyalty can be a great challenge and on the other side, customer churn prevention cannot always be guaranteed. But, you can try to reduce it by understanding your customers’ needs and making them feel it’s worth investing in your product.

After all, they are the ones investing in it. They are the ones enjoying it. So, their expectations will be stronger than you think to make your product better, in a way they can utilize it wisely.

It’s not enough to just accept it and not take further actions or just take in as feedback, though! Instead, the way you work for what you do to gather, manage, and respond to that feedback makes the difference in the customer side.

It’s always a better and easiest way to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. It’s the best thing to see an announcement about a new feature and an easy way to identify customers may or may not want. It’s quite another way to send an email saying, Hey that “feature you requested” is live now!

When the customer gets that email, they feel heard, seen, and appreciated. They feel like they somehow “supported” to develop the product. It doesn’t seem like you’re marketing your product. It feels like they’re being thanked. It makes them maintain a strong loyalty with you until the whole product life cycle. Cool right? Customers will feel happy to stick around and be excited to see other releases. And, satisfy themselves for being invested in your product. This, in turn, prevents customer churn.

Ultimately, it develops customer loyalty.

Initiate feedback gathering during support conversations

Anyway, feedback is going to come your way. If someone is actively using your product and there exists an open way to contact you, you will be contacted.

At the very least percentage, your customers will try to reach out to you for product support. No matter how clear your documentation is, you’re always answerable for questions.

Any customer support agent who’s been working on the job for more than an hour knows it isn’t only giving out answers. It’s also the time to take suggestions in.

Customer support means you’re listening directly to your customers. But often, those customer support teams don’t have a good avenue to push suggestions from customers to the clear proper note.

But, providing customer support never gets the same meaning as actively wondering for customer feedback.

Worse yet, many organizations seem to think customer support and feedback are similar things. It’s not!

They think that, since customers give feedback during the customer support conversation, that’s the same as actively gathering feedback. There’s no straightforward process to receive feedback, much less request, prioritize, and act on it.

Actively gathering feedback isn’t only better for holding customers, either. Your team likely has even perfect ideas. They want to pay attention even more than your customers do.

Ensure that feedback is being captured at the time you get it! You can worry about working on it later depending on your priority. But don’t let suggestions just disappear into the void.

Keep your customers updated that they’ve been heard and their thoughts are setting to live

Static companies find their directions.

They assume that they know what’s best. They will show customers what customers' needs are. Customer feedback and suggestions get to bounce off.

After, these companies are rolling their eyes when a customer-centric competitor eats their lunch.

The static companies send feedback into the invalid. They draw a line they get out of the competition. Something like showcasing we thank you for your insights and we will certainly consider it as we move forward with… etc. It’s boring to get that response. You know right away that you may as well have given that feedback to move away aimlessly.

When you receive actionable customer feedback, that should set for action. Even if it’s not an urgent action, your customer should get more than just a “thanks for your insight” message. They should be able to confirm that feedback has been received like not just be told it has.

Even if you are not aware of any short-term plans to address it, capture it. Simply, add it to your public roadmap. The fact of determining it’s not trapped in a customer support ticket is significant.

You can also shut your pressure down by your customer support team by proactively gathering feedback. Give your customers a self-serve way to include their requests and see what other requests are in the works.

Since you’re on the Hellonext blog, it won’t surprise you to know we have a better example of this on our Hellonext feedback board. You’d be excited at the roles curiosity can play in preventing customer churn.

Always make your customer stay in the “wow” factor by updating what’s happening next.

If you showcase what you’re actively working on publicly, you may worry that your customers won’t think you’re moving forward faster.

But, if you need a customer to be calm at your development time, it’s necessary to show them your development speed! A public roadmap will guide customers as you are experimenting on improvements. A public changelog also helps in showcasing your recent accomplishments. Those give customers valid reasons to be calm.

So don’t just take in a request - take meaningful action on it. Even if that action is taking in more feedback about that request. Welcome comments from various users on existing ideas in your workflow. Sort out who else has its advantages so you can acknowledge everyone about the implementation!

Even if the equal action is to just say ‘NO’ to the request, let the user know. Don’t leave as it is hanging. If a decision is clear, update them! It shows customers that they do have a voice in improvement and decision-making.

Raised customer loyalty serves as a promoter for your product

At last, to increase customer loyalty, a customer should feel worth investing in your product. A customer who identifies their feedback brings changes they will be happy about invested.

Pro tip: To add more insights to this article, check out why it is crucial to use a changelog.

Likely, your customers will feel that they helped build the right feature for your product. Now, it gives confidence a bit more like their own product.

Even a single instance of customer feedback being listened to and brought up with meaningful changes will make the difference. It triggers a sense of brand allegiance like nothing else.

They’ll likely help you with feedback frequently even if you don’t reach out to them. They’ll start to share their insights without any messy thoughts.

If you need someone to promote your product, make your customers feel like they own it. Then customers will promote your product to others and bring you the unbreakable organic network if they feel they had a hand in improving it.

So, provide them with that, by actively looking out, hearing to, and following up on their feedback insights. Make them feel like they’re contributors to your product’s success. Because they are!