Everybody’s got something to say and everybody has their opinion. (Some more than others… mum)
That’s a fact of life. So how can you transform the fact that people love to talk about themselves into a way to increase conversion?
The answer is customer feedback surveys and we’re going to show you how to use them.
How do customer feedback surveys work?
At their best, customer feedback surveys are automatically-triggered prompts that ask your customers to tell you a little bit about their recent purchase.
We think the best way to do it is via email, but they can also work on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, or however you talk to your customers.
Feedback surveys are a chance for your customers to be honest with you – what did they like? What didn’t they like? How would they improve the overall experience? How did they find you?
These surveys give you two vital bits of info:
First, you get valuable feedback about how you’re running your operation – general stuff that you might not be aware of.
Second, they also provide you with a treasure trove of content that you can (and should) be using to sell more products!
The on-page benefits of customer feedback surveys
Feedback surveys are the ultimate form of user-generated content (UGC). It’s one of the most valuable types of content marketers have at their disposal.
Feedback surveys give customers the chance to review multiple facets of their buying experience. They can tell you about their satisfaction with the product itself or how easy your storefront was to navigate. Surveys, with the right small print, mean that you can display customer feedback without worrying about privacy.
As a brand, you get to project transparency and build trust, while consumers get their important questions answered and are more keen to pull the trigger on their purchase. - Highlight to share -
Displaying these reviews can help customers choose the right product, and help brands gain trust.
According to the 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report, consumer trust in celebrity endorsements, corporate marketing teams and ‘experts’ is at an all-time low.
Now, the people customers really trust are ‘people like them.’ That means regular, unremarkable fellow consumers with no agenda and no ulterior motives, sharing helpful information for free. Basically, your customers.
What does this mean in real terms?
Well, for our clients, displaying reviews on a webpage results in an average 2.7x increase in conversion rate compared to the same page without reviews.
How do you use this to your advantage?
You encourage this sharing of helpful information with feedback surveys. Then, you display all relevant review information about a product on that product page, for any and all shoppers to see.
As a brand, you get to project transparency and build trust, while consumers get their important questions answered and are more keen to pull the trigger on their purchase.
Everybody wins.
The search benefits of customer feedback surveys
As we’ve said before, making sure you have lots of user-generated content (like surveys and reviews) on your site is known to improve SEO.
A regular flow of fresh, unique content keeps your website at the top of Google’s results and is good for long-tail search queries.
Reviews also allow you to take advantage of Google Rich Snippets.
Rich Snippets let your page stand out on Google’s results page by also including the star rating of the product in question, as well as the text from the top review for it.
These additions not only make the result stand out on the page, but can also take the result display higher up the rankings. Awesome!
Collecting reviews using an official Google partner (like Reevoo) also gives you a Google Seller Rating.
This displays a star rating under your paid Google ad results and really makes your page stand out from the rest (especially if your rating is high). Look at the difference below.
With Google’s new rules, however, you need to collect at least 150 customer reviews in the last 12 months for your Google Seller Rating to appear.
So, you better get to collecting those surveys.
What else can I collect?
Reviews are the first and most powerful nugget of UGC in your arsenal. They help enrich your product development, customer service, and marketing plans, but there’s even more you can do to build trust and consumer confidence.
Why stop at reviews, which don’t always answer exactly what your customers want answered? Step up to peer-to-peer conversations, which allow confirmed owners to opt-in to answering questions from shoppers about their product.
We find that around 46% of reviewers opt-in to answer questions and this buzzing community instills confidence in shoppers.
Not only do they feel like they are not left alone out in the cold after purchase, but they can get the specific answers to the specific questions they need that are keeping them from pressing “buy.”
Plus, if we’re talking SEO – those queries are written in the same kind of language your potential customers might be Googling (funny, that – they are the same kind of people after all).
If you’re ready to step up to some truly compelling UGC and want to create a buzzing, beautiful community, you can use carefully pitched feedback surveys to collect customer experiences.
User-created video reviews, impressions, and other multimedia content are more honest, influential, and convincing than any press release. People like to see how people like them use the product in their real lives.
Go ahead, collect customer feedback surveys. They bolster your product pages, they help your SEO results, and they improve conversion using the most powerful currency in marketing: consumer trust.
