How to Use Customer Surveys to Improve Your Product

A well-made customer survey can bring up brand loyalty, customer satisfaction, and product sales. And most importantly, it can all around just improve your product!

That’s why we gathered a rundown of useful ways you can incorporate your findings into your products and advice on how to construct a great survey. If you’re looking to analyze customer feedback to improve your products and business, Kapiche can help. Our website allows you to generate review reports easily and efficiently.

Let’s start!

Deciphering Survey Data

Before you start surveying customers, you should learn to understand survey data. That way, you’re not gathering data in vain.

Here are two kinds of survey data we use the most – structured and unstructured data.

Structured Survey Data

Structured questions are more nuanced. They are sometimes structured as list selections, at times as multiple-choice, radio buttons, etc.

You form them after conducting research and double-checking there’s no bias woven in. To make sure you’re making a properly structured survey, you can always use the services of a proven product development consultancy.

Unstructured Survey Data

As you have probably assumed, unstructured questions are open-ended. That usually means you give a text field for the customer to fill in. They can write longer answers in free form.

These are easier to put together, so it comes as no surprise that most survey questions are unstructured. If choosing this route, make sure you really get into the intricacies of what your customers want to say and use the data to improve your product.

And no matter if you use structured or unstructured data, make sure your customers don’t spend their time and energy in vain. If they took the time to answer, reciprocate and use their answers to meet their needs and bring your product to another level. You’d be surprised how often customers give specific advice on improving product features. After all, they are the ones using the product the most.

The payoff of going through all the data you get is big. Even if some unhelpful feedback slips in here or there.

Best Tips on Using Customer Surveys to Improve Your Product

Before making your next business move, be sure you are gouging information from customers and listening to what they have to say. Here are some tips on constructing a good customer survey.

Keep It Short

Finding the shortest way to ask a question without losing the essence is your main objective. You should eliminate unnecessary wording from your questions in addition to reducing the character count.

However, overall survey length is still critical for maintaining low abandonment rates. Consider the last time you eagerly spent 30 minutes filling out a questionnaire. Most likely, it never occurred.

Create Smart Questions

Open-ended questions that let clients express their true thoughts on the page will produce some of your most insightful feedback. Resist the temptation to stick with multiple-choice tests and scales.

But if you start straight away with a large text box, the customer may find the survey daunting. So it’s best to start with quick questions. That way, customers can feel like they’re moving forward. And then give those who have completed the survey and reached the final questions the chance to elaborate.

One tactic is to ask a direct question, gain people’s attention, and then ask an open-ended question like, “Why do you feel this way?”

Determine Performance Goals

The information from a quick survey your customers fill out after speaking with one of your customer care representatives is among the easiest data to gather. Customers can instantly provide comments about their experiences by selecting the thumbs up or down, a joyful green face, or perhaps the furious red one.

You can use the information to support your customer service representatives create goals for achieving favorable reviews. Make the objectives attainable, and reward the top employees for a job well done. Every industry is seeing a rise in this trend and then basing a percentage of an employee’s pay on feedback ratings.

Use the Survey to Size Up the Competition

Using a survey is a great and fundamental way of making a comparison to other businesses in your niche. You can do this by asking customers why they prefer your product, and thus get insight on what are your strengths as opposed to your competition.

As a result, it may lead to unparalleled data while launching a new product.

The following questions should be used to determine the competition:

  • How would you rate this service compared to the competition?
  • Does our product outperform the competition in terms of price, features, or build quality?
  • Why did you pick this particular product?
  • What problems does this product solve that similar products in the market don’t?

Ask Specifically About Product Improvement

And why not get straight to the point by asking about product improvement? The customers who use your product the most will have the most useful ideas on what’s missing. And they’ll love the feeling of being engaged in product development. Getting the customers to feel as if their voice matters – that’s what’s in trend these days.

Here are some product improvement questions to ask:

  • What features would you like to see added to the product?
  • How would you change the design of the product?
  • Would you change something about our customer support?
  • What was your biggest problem when using the product?

The questions above are examples. But they give you a solid foundation from which to conduct a survey that brings priceless information.

Final Word

These are just some of the tips that you can come back to when crafting your customer surveys. Define a clear goal and a target audience, and start making those surveys. Use the feedback from your customers to improve your products and much more! From user experience, customer service, and customer experience – all of these can get better with the data gathered from surveys.

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