Answering ‘yes’ to this question means your organisation does gather customer feedback and act on it in ways that are relevant to you. 

This question applies to everyone, but smaller organisations are more likely to take less structured, more informal approaches to gathering customer feedback.  

For example, follow up conversations with customers are a way of getting feedback, and making a change to how you complete your work for another customer (e.g. your pricing or materials) could be a response. Getting back to complaints promptly and professionally is another type of response.   

Customer feedback is not a regulatory/ legal requirement.  

Gathering customer feedback 

For smaller organisations:

• Casual chats with customers 
• Follow up calls 
• Social media if relevant (monitoring and responding to likes, mentions, direct messages; inviting user generated content – photos/ videos of people with your product/ service) 
• Online reviews and testimonials (encouraging them, monitoring and responding) 
• Suggestion boxes in physical locations 
• Monitoring/ observing customer behaviour (physically or online analytics) 

More formal mechanisms:

• Surveys 
• Analysing customer support interactions (e.g. emails, online chat, calls) (with permission) 
• Focus groups 
• Feedback forms 
• Sales calls 
• Gathering metrics like CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) or NPS (Net Promoter Score – measures customer loyalty)  

Keeping track of and responding to customer feedback  

For smaller organisations: 

• Having clear lines of responsibility (or a reminder to yourself) for reviewing and managing feedback and messages 
• If there is any volume of feedback, tracking it in a simple system (e.g. a spreadsheet or other list or tool) 
• Note what needs an urgent response or change and what is a long term consideration 
• Note if the same issues are recurring by categorising feedback 
• Have a set short timeframe within which you respond to customers, even if only to acknowledge their message and state when you will get back again 
• Let people know when you have made a change which responds to their issue (personally or in a wider message) 

For larger organisations, the same principles apply but they are likely to use more formal mechanisms, for example: 

• Dedicated tools like customer feedback management systems, social media monitoring, online community platforms, customer journey mapping and more 
• Customer advisory boards 
• Gathering employee insight about customers 

Benefits of gathering and responding to customer feedback include: 

• Getting to know your customers’ point of view on your product or service, its strengths and weaknesses  
• Showing customers you value their opinions and their business 
• Understanding changing points of view about what’s important to your customers 
• Being able to make changes to meet customer expectations based on facts rather than guesswork (for example, about your product, pricing, or communication) 
• Putting your valuable time and money into things that will make a difference to customers and to your business 
• Fostering long term relationships with customers; making it more likely that customers come back for repeat business or recommend you to others 
• Avoiding small problems or complaints becoming larger issues affecting relationships with customers 

Business Forum blog The importance of customer feedback

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