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Customer feedback is a powerful tool. It can help guide important business decisions. Getting customers is one thing, but keeping them is another. When you run your own business, you do everything humanly possible to satisfy and please your customers. But how do you know you’re getting the desired results from your efforts?
It’s simple: you ask them.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to grip the world, many fitness professionals are adjusting to a new normal of delivering both online and in-person classes. It’s more important than ever to stay on top of customer feedback and satisfaction. By taking the right steps, you can continue to support your clients in a way that they need. Many cities throughout the world are facing the prospect of another lockdown. As you continue to deal with client anxiety over the spread of COVID-19 and new protocols, customer feedback is extremely valuable. You need to consider how you can make customers feel comfortable with your services, both online and offline.
These days collecting customer feedback is crucial in managing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and customer retention during economic downturns. Customer satisfaction is a key metric that you can use to improve your business. To gauge customer satisfaction, you need customer feedback.
So, what is customer feedback?
Customer feedback is information provided by your clients on their experience with your services. The purpose of customer feedback is to reveal their customer satisfaction levels. There are thousands of businesses to pick from and a customer will likely not want to continue supporting a business that treats them poorly. You can then take this information and find out where there is room for improvement. Whether it’s to do with your marketing, your services, or, more relevantly, your COVID-19 communication and protocols, customer feedback will guide key business decisions.
Measure Customer Satisfaction with Feedback
Customer satisfaction and loyalty are two crucial elements that determine your success. When clients are happy and satisfied with your services, they remain loyal. They have a reason to keep coming back again and again. An increase in loyalty means a rise in positive word-of-mouth about your business. When that customer satisfaction starts to drop, it can be detrimental to your business.
Good customer satisfaction is linked to good business performance. You want to make sure your clients are happy with your business and services. It doesn’t matter who you are; no one is a mind reader. The best way to find out what your customers think is to ask.
The information you collect allows you to measure, manage, and improve customer satisfaction. By improving customer satisfaction and offering an incredible customer experience, you will increase customer loyalty. Feedback is essential to measure customer satisfaction and maintain the best customer experience. Asking customers for their feedback also gives you added benefits, such as:
- Shows you value your client’s opinions
- Improves customer retention
- Gives you information to make better data-driven business decisions
- Strengthens your reputation
According to a study, 72% of customers will share a positive experience with six or more people. However, if a customer is not happy, 13% will share their experience with 15 or more. Where things get tricky is with the silent customers. In most cases, customers don’t tell you they’re unhappy. A study showed that only 1 in 26 dissatisfied customers complain. And the rest? They leave (not good).
There is an unspoken mindset that the absence of feedback, particularly negative feedback, is a sign of customer satisfaction for businesses of any size. But studies have shown this is very likely not the case. Your customers may be unhappy with and sharing their bad experiences or unhappy and individually deciding it’s not worth it to give feedback, so they find another business to support. One negative experience out of 10 positive ones could be fatal to customer retention. In a PwC survey of 15,000 consumers, results found that 1 out of 3 customers would leave a brand, no matter how loyal they were, after one negative experience. 92% of the survey pool said they would stop supporting the company altogether after two or three bad experiences. The little things add up, and sometimes, a poor customer experience can be as small as an email follow up that took too long. So, pay attention to the details of your customer feedback because they undoubtedly are.
How to Keep Clients Coming Back
Collecting customer feedback is an ongoing process. As a successful fitness entrepreneur, you need to know what your clients think. Are they happy with your services? Do they feel you’re instructing in a COVID-secure way? Are your hygiene and social distancing guidelines clear? When you have access to this kind of information, it’s easier to make changes that you know will benefit your customers. Here are five ways to get customer feedback.
1. Customer Feedback Polls and Surveys
Creating polls and surveys through email marketing is one of the easiest ways to collect feedback from your customers. Surveys and polls usually only take a few minutes to complete. You can easily gather information from your customers. There are plenty of free online tools you can use to create polls and surveys such as:
- SurveyMonkey
- Google Forms
- HubSpot Forms
- Survicate
- Mailchimp Surveys
2. Social Media
With more people spending time scrolling on social media, monitor your social media for any feedback. According to Sprout Social, 47% of customers with a service or product complaint will voice their opinion on social media. The Facebook customer feedback score, for example, impacts your business ads and commerce performance. It’s crucial to have a social media presence and engage in a discussion where people talk about your services. Keep an eye out for mentions and comments so that you can instantly get feedback and support your clients.
3. Emails
You can use emails to send surveys and polls to customers. By sending regular monthly newsletters, you can collect ongoing feedback. Always make sure to reply to all client emails. A good practice is a 24-hour turnaround for email correspondence. During times of crisis, it’s a good idea to go above and beyond with your communication. Check-in regularly with clients to see how they feel and if you can do more to support them.
It’s essential to stay in touch and help solve any problems that may arise. This will help give you regular insight into any issues and areas of improvement. Naturally, many people feel anxious and uncertain about the current situation, so it’s essential that you find out how to minimize worries and offer solutions to any problems.
4. Analyze Website Activity
You can collect data on different types of activity on your website. You can find out where customers spend most of their time. Connecting Google Analytics to your website is free and offers an invaluable data tool. It’s also beneficial to learn the most searched FAQ as this gives you an idea of the most common problems clients face. If you haven’t already, create a clear COVID section on your website. This area should inform clients on everything you’re doing to remain COVID secure if you’re teaching in person and how they can access your digital content as well.
5. Incentives for Feedback
A classic way of asking for customer feedback is by offering a reward for doing so. Enter customers into a prize draw to win big or provide some sort of discount or coupon code for participation. Try to choose a reward that’s relevant to your business, like a one-on-one training session or a month’s access to your digital fitness platform.
Customer feedback makes it possible to find out what your clients really think about your business and your services. During difficult times, it’s even more important to maintain customer satisfaction and keep their trust. Sometimes the truth may hurt but remember, this is business and not personal. To keep a continuous customer base you need to take all feedback into consideration, especially while we navigate through this pandemic.
By having a greater insight into customer satisfaction, you can take the actions necessary to provide an incredible customer experience your clients will love now and in the future. This will help you implement the best safety, hygiene, and social distancing procedures to ensure that your clients feel comfortable and motivated to work out. When you have honest client feedback, you can improve your services, make more money, and ultimately support your clients.