How to use feedback to improve product quality

Feedback is more than a marketing tool. It is a working philosophy that puts customer feedback at the heart of your business strategy. Customers will always tell you what needs to be improved in your product or service and how your product is inferior to others. You should not ignore their opinions, even if they are unpleasant. Ignoring comments can lead to the collapse of your business.
An unhappy customer who tells you what they don't like is not an enemy, but your helper. It is a person who gives you the opportunity to grow. Learn to see an unsatisfied customer as your best friend.

Selpway Trading ltd specialists told us about the ways to collect feedback and how to use it.

Ways to gather feedback
Customer feedback. This can be testimonials on your website, on your company's social networks, on feedback service sites, etc. You can collect feedback when communicating via private messages, feedback can be presented in the form of videos, audio recordings - all according to your taste (and with the customer's consent, of course).

Social media analysis. Many customers use social media to express their opinions about products and services. Analysing this feedback can help you understand what customers think about your products, what image is being created, what they are happy with and what they would like to change and improve.

Targeted research. In this case, you carry out targeted research yourself or use specialist companies that offer services to collect feedback and analyse the information obtained.

Directed research methods:
  • Questionnaires. You can send a questionnaire to a customer after they have received a service or purchased goods from your company. You can also use your customer base and send questionnaires to everyone on a topic of interest to you.
  • Interview. You communicate with the customer online or offline. During the interview you can find out a lot of interesting and useful information about their experience of interacting with your product or service.

Whether you use a questionnaire or an interview depends on the purpose of your research. If you already know the specific questions you want to ask, you can create a questionnaire that lists the questions and answer options. This will make it easier for the client to answer.

When is the best time to conduct an interview? When you are researching a topic on which you have not yet formed an opinion or gathered enough information to formulate all the questions in the questionnaire. During the interview, the client may not only answer the questions you ask, but also provide additional information that you had not considered. In the early stages of gathering customer feedback, interviews are preferable.

  • Focus groups. In this approach, you invite not just one customer to be interviewed, but several at the same time. Small groups of people meet and, with the help of a moderator, discuss a given topic. This option is often used by large companies - it is labour intensive and requires specialist skills. But it can save you money when it comes to making expensive decisions, such as what kind of ad to run.
  • You can immediately test your hypotheses on a small sample of the target audience. Group discussion brings up many different aspects of the research. Many participants will open up and talk more about topics related to your product or service as the research progresses.
How and where to use the information
The information can be used in three different ways.
  1. Product improvement. If you have done your research properly and obtained a valid sample, this information can be used to develop the business. Look at how many people you interviewed, who you talked to, where you got the information from. Of course, this doesn't apply to obvious failures and mistakes where your product completely fails to meet any customer needs.
  2. Service improvement. How quickly the courier processed the order; how convenient the delivery was; how well the customer service worked; how polite the manager was. You can find out about this and much more through feedback. Be careful when deciding what to improve. You should first make sure that these changes are really necessary. There is a danger of getting caught up in the tastes of individual customers. It's not a given that the majority will like it.
  3. Marketing. Use the positive things that customers have noticed in your advertising. On social media and on your website blog, devote special content to these themes. In this way, you will attract more customers who like certain aspects of your service or product. Also, find out what your customers are afraid of, what their wants, needs and 'pains' are. You can use all this useful information in your offer and advertising.
Tips from Selpway Trading ltd
Feedback is not just information, it is a tool to improve your product and strategy as a whole. Feedback can contain positive or negative information about the customer's interaction with your product or service, level of service, product quality, etc. It can also tell you what to add or take away to improve the quality of your product or service. It can also suggest what needs to be added or removed to improve the quality of the product or level of service.

Gathering feedback should become a routine business process. However, remember that it should not only be collected, but also analysed and the information gained applied to the business. Without regular analysis, feedback and research results will simply accumulate and will not contribute to improving the quality of your work.
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