Top performers, be it the individuals or companies have something in common, they use feedback to gradually enhance their performance. Both positive & negative feedback is critical. Feedback is a powerful means to know the current state of performance, and what they need to reach a higher level. In this article, we are going to talk about the two important types of feedback.
One is customer feedback. Not only do customer reviews help a brand establish its market reputation, but also allow the company to figure out where its pain points are to fix and boost revenue. While another one is internal feedback that organizations use to motivate their teams to perform their best. So, let’s scroll down and learn about these.
What is Feedback?
Feedback is the verbal/written information shared by reviewers with regards to how they feel about your brand, products, and services they received from your company (or) it may be an opinion coming from one individual about another individual.
In this article, we are gonna talk about two kinds of feedback and why they are important:-
Internal Feedback
There is a popular type of feedback, which is internal within the organization, and often constructive. It enables each individual in the team to learn from their mistakes, and build confidence. In a nutshell, internal feedback helps in weaving a culture within the organization that supports and nurtures one another. And, companies of all sizes and complexities these days invest in the modern feedback-based approach for better management.
Customer Feedback
Regardless of business size & type, customer feedback is an invaluable asset that drives long-term growth. Collecting and analyzing customer feedback also helps in enhancing the overall user experience. For instance, a software company can utilize feedback to identify the bugs in their application and fix them as early as possible. Whereas retail companies can use it to evaluate the products and in some cases, restaurants use it to update their menu upon responses from customers.
Customer feedback can be obtained in several forms. Starting with social media posts of customers tagging your brand (it can be both be used to sing your company praises or vent out frustrations), word-of-mouth interaction between the present and prospect customers, and in fact, you can also run surveys to determine how your products/services are performing.
How you collect customer feedback, depends upon you, but there is a myriad of ways to utilize them. Collecting & analyzing customer input can play a crucial role in improving how your service team is performing, engaging with the prospects, and training your team to deal with future customer inquiries.
5 Reasons Why Feedback is Important at the Workplace?
Continuous constructive employee feedback has a positive impact on the workplace environment.
And, we are going to put forth the top reasons why feedback is important at the workplace, so let’s learn about these:-
1) Improve Overall Performance
Feedback within the organization serves as a means for a business to communicate the expectation of performance from its team. Also, learning about what a particular individual is doing will enhances his/her work performance through increased confidence.
By knowing where they are lacking, would motivate them to stretch themselves and work on weaknesses to receive positive feedback next time from their reporting manager.
2) Improved Employee Engagement
Regular feedback and coaching play a key role in building employee relationships.
If the management shows keen interest & investment toward their employees, the employees would acknowledge & appreciate that. When you make your employees valued, they are more likely to go that extra mile in delivering on your expectations.
3) No Surprises During Internal Reviews
If the management isn’t involved in their different teams day-to-day working and providing instant feedback, it would be impossible for the employees to know whether the company is satisfied with their work. And, without any feedback, firing an employee for underperforming sends negative vibes in the entire organization.
Continuous feedback is important so that the employees don’t perform below expectations because of working blind. Rather than taking the big call at once, be open and communicate bad feedback with the employee, to give him/her the chance to improve.
4) New Ideas
Giving feedback is one of the most transparent communications the team has with their organization’s management.
Interactions due to feedback could foster new ideas and perspectives, which often may not be reached by any other method. By doing so, each team member feels valued and appreciated in the company.
5) Introvert Employee Integration
Not every employee in an organization knows how to voice their opinion or share information that hasn’t been asked for. But, you need to remember that certain individuals feel timid or somewhat nervous to initiate conversation whenever the management doesn’t involve them in the process.
The introverted kind of employees could miss out on something crucial relevant to their work. Having feedback programs in an organization that presents their employees to ask questions (or) would make them feel open to ask more questions. The introverted employees will grow with all the other employees in the company and pick up skills that may not have the opportunity to explore earlier.
5 Reasons Why Customer Feedback is Important for Businesses?
As a business, you leave no stone unturned to satisfy your customers and eventually turn them into your loyal customers. But, how do you know, if your customer satisfaction strategies are working, the answer is customer feedback. In fact, most of our clients at NinjaOS have built good businesses leveraging quality customer feedbacks.
And, here we’ve rounded why customer feedback is still crucial for businesses:-
1) Helps in Improving Products & Services
When you introduce a new product/service to the market, you probably have a rough idea of your prospective customer’s needs.
Market research was done earlier and put forth information on whether your potential customers are willing to buy your offering, and also tips to improve it.
However, only after launching the product/service, will you be able to learn about the pros and cons through customer feedback. The feedback can be utilized as insight to improve products & services, thus the secret to thrive in today’s competitive times.
2) Shows You Value Their Opinion
Requiring your customer to give feedback is a means to let them know their opinion matters. They feel attached to the brand, and enhance leads to improve customer retention. Listening to what your customers are saying allows your company to establish rewarding relationships. And, as we all know, renting a customer is way less costly than getting a new customer, however, customer feedback should not be overlooked.
Your customers will always feel appreciated whenever you ask them to give their valuable feedback, whether they are happy or unhappy with your product/service. It shows that your company aims to build customer relationships, and not get their money.
3) Reliable Source Of Information For Prospective Customers
In the times of social media, people these days do trust actual people over celebrity commercials and expert advice.
The opinion given by customers who have used a specific product/service these days serves as a reliable source of information for other potential buyers. For instance, when you’re in search of a good restaurant nearby, what you see first is, yes, the customer reviews & ratings for the word-of-mouth of your best pal. Therefore, customer feedback could be used to promote your brand to reach the masses.
4) Take Better Business Decision
In today’s neck-throat competitive world, there is no room for making mistakes by making business decisions based on guesses.
Successful businesses gather customer feedback and analyze them as insight to develop future strategies.
Customer feedback is an unbiased source to drive tangible data that becomes the grounds for taking rough business calls. Taking the suggestion of your customers will guide your businesses where to invest more money to drive the highest revenue on investment.
However, you must learn how to translate customer feedback into actionable takeaways.
5) Improve Customers Retention
It is no-rocket acne, the satisfied customer will stay loyal to your brand. Unhappy customers will find a better alternative and may talk bad about your brand to people in their circle.
So, customer feedback is the best way to determine whether the customers are satisfied with your products & services, and narrow down on areas of improvement.
Each time a dissatisfied customer reacts and puts forth their problem, try to fix the problem as soon as possible, and see how they become your most loyal customer. So, you can turn negative feedback into customer retention with a quick fix.
Conclusion
Be it customer or internal workplace feedback, a well-drafted mechanism must be in place to avail all the above-mentioned benefits. And, remember, don’t think you will be able to execute the feedback strategy overnight, it takes time to nurture and deliver measurable results.
And, above all, the results must be evaluated continuously to ensure that the strategies in place are appropriate or need to be tweaked.
