Understanding your customers better than they understand themselves – it’s not just optional, it’s imperative. Without this you’re going blind, shooting darts with your eyes closed. Sometimes you hit the target, more often you miss.
So you need as much customer insights as possible. But:
- It’s not so easy to get.
- It’s important when, where, and how you ask for it.
You need to understand these moments of truth, a point when customers decide to take a course of action that has either a negative or positive impact on your business. The better you understand how your customers feel at these moments, the better you can own them (own the moments of course, not your customers.)
Here are some of great (and personally tested) ways to gather real-time feedback at different points in a customer’s journey.
1. The moment they finished their order
From your customers, you can learn many precious things — such as what convinced them to order or what almost prevented them from becoming your customer.
A great moment to ask for their feedback is on the “Thank You“ page. Right after they have finished their order, the moments of joy and frustration they have experienced during the buying process are still fresh in their heads.
2. When they engage with your business on mobile
The best type of questions is open-ended ones. And it also holds true for mobile surveys.
Mobile users are less inclined to type in long answers, but usually their short feedback — often not more than one or two words — gives us valuable insights we could never capture with multiple-choice questions.
Contrary to surveys on desktop devices, ask only one open-ended question on mobile devices, which you can combine with additional, easier-to-answer multiple choice questions.
3. Right after they unsubscribe from your newsletter
You can learn a lot from users’ unsubscribe requests.
Short surveys can help find out why these subscribers are leaving to prevent future opt-outs (is it a matter of content? frequency? are they simply turning to another channel? etc.).
Another option is to offer users alternatives (with some type of preference center) in an attempt to retain them.
4. When they get “social” with you
Most of your Facebook fans are not customers, but they have already demonstrated some interest in your brand by liking your page — that makes them the perfect targets if you want to learn more about your prospects.
Implementing surveys takes only a couple of minutes, and it’s easy to quickly get a large number of respondents.
5. When visitors can’t find what they are looking for
Sometimes user research uncovers that prospects cannot find what they are looking for. They are interested in the service, but cannot find the product they want. In such cases adding a little on-site survey at the end of the category pages can help you find out what else you should offer and at the same time turn your visitor’s bad moment of truth into a good one.
It also makes sense to incorporate the same feedback mechanism on pages displaying zero search results.
6. The moment visitors are leaving
Using HotJar or Qualaroo, find out the unique intentions, needs, and frustrations of visitors when leaving a page. The moment a user is abandoning a page a small survey pops up at the bottom of the page. Ask one simple, open-ended question such as “What prevented you from ordering today?”
When you have all this data, use it. You will not find better-quality feedback anywhere. And what your customers and potential customers tell you, is worth not just gold, it’s pure diamonds.
6 ways to capture priceless customer insights with in-the-moment feedback
PS. I hope to never get feedback on #3 from you. Deal?
