The importance of feedback in improving
your sales, site and software
by Michael Wall
Customer feedback
A while back I received an email from a potential customer suggesting
that he liked a piece of membership software that I sell. Over the course
of the next few days he sent me numerous emails with suggestions for features
that I might want to include in a new update. I was only to happy to get
to work on his suggestions after all they could only make for a better
product, more customers and a bigger profit. He was also a very experienced
web developer with over 10 years experience so to ignore his advice would
be foolish.
A couple of months down the line and sales soared. His extensive feedback
had proved a godsend and showed exactly why feedback is so important.
It helped me provide better software and dramatically increased my online
sales. Tapping into the knowledge of an experienced web developer will
always provide dividends. Even less experienced developers and general
visitors can give you valuable advice and a new perspective.
Website blind
When you build a website you can sometimes get so focused on the site
that even after your testing and quality assurance you can overlook errors
and typos. Getting an outsider to proof read your copy is always a good
idea.
Negative feedback
Negative feedback should spur you on provided it is constructive rather
than abusive. You will always get the guy who cruises round sites just
ditching everything in sight. Ignore the abuse and don't be rattled though
always take on board feedback provided it is constructive.
Use a Poll
Although not every visitor will provide you with such as a wealth of feedback
as was the case above there are plenty of ways to actively encourage your
visitors and they aren’t that complicated or costly to implement.
A poll is a good way to garnish feedback. I realised after a while that
I could use my poll as a way to assist me in planning new site adjustments
and to find out what areas of the site my visitors felt needed to be changed
or updated. Polls that I have asked on my site include “Should I
use Worldpay as well as PayPal for a payment option?” and “Should
I include a member’s forum”. I acted on my forum results as
the majority of site visitors wanted a forum and decided not to use Worldpay
for the time being as my visitors seemed happy enough to use PayPal to
buy my software. If you would like to have more information and not just
a straight poll you could use a poll that allows your visitors to add
comments as well. I created a Poll system (Poll Pro) that not only allows
the site administrator to post polls but also to allow visitors to vote
and offer comments as well. It’s a nice feature and highly beneficial.
Think about your poll carefully and what exactly you want to know, questions
that help or improve your site or help you learn some demographics of
your visitors are preferable. Acting on the poll outcome will show regular
visitors that you are listening to their opinions.
Provide a feedback form
Make sure you provide a feedback form and not just an email link. Feedback
forms will encourage your visitors to provide feedback more than just
a simple email link. With a feedback form you are letting your visitors
know that you want them to provide you with feedback and that you will
listen to their comments and perhaps even act on them. Make the form as
attractive as possible, use drop down boxes, radio buttons and try not
to make the form too long and difficult to fill in. Don’t ask too
many personal details, an email address and a contact name may suffice
in most cases. You may want to validate the form so that you get a proper
email address and name. If you sell products provide an easy drop down
menu of those products or a department within your company that the email
will be sent to. Also make sure there’s a thank you after submission
to let the visitor know that the submission was successful and provide
a time scale message such as “a member of our support team will
be in contact with you within the next 24 hours”. You may also want
to remind the visitor of your business hours.
Other feedback suggestions
A forum can be another way to gain feedback and suggestions. Perhaps having
a forum category called ‘site suggestions’ or ‘product
suggestions’ would be a good addition to your site. Another good
way to gain feedback is in your payment processing. If you sell products
you’ll know that sometimes visitors cancel their purchase just at
the last minute This can be puzzling. PayPal allows you to redirect the
user back to a personalised page so why not allow the user to provide
you with feedback as to why they aborted the purchase. This could be valuable
information, perhaps they felt the payment process was too cumbersome
and long and if so you may decide to change to a different payment company.
Providing ready written options such as “the payment process was
too long and complicated” that have an accompanying checkbox might
make it easier for the visitors rather than them simply having to fill
in a feedback box. Other ideas might be to use review or rating software
that will let you visitors perhaps rate a page or application and write
reviews.
Employing some or all of these methods can certainly help you get feedback.
In turn this feedback will help you provide a better site or software
and the best thing of all is that this feedback doesn’t cost!
I'd love you to email me (michael@codefixer.com) and tell me what you
think of this article!
About the Author
Michael Wall is the founder of Codefixer.com. Codefixer is an ASP resource
site aimed primarily at the beginner to intermediate ASP developer.
Codefixer also offers ASP membership management software and solutions.
Catagories:
|