Customer Feedback: Improve Customer Satisfaction through sentiment analysis – Part 1
Microsoft affirms that more than 50% of people around the world want companies to take prompt action on collected customer feedback. Customers give feedback because they want to be heard both by other customers and by the brands. They show how they feel and think about and how satisfied they are from a brand when buying or using a product or service. When companies react to such feedback it means that the voice of the customer is heard and a relationship is getting started or strengthened with the customer. Feedback analysis can change the course of business growth from small startups to large corporations.
Customer feedback can come in different forms, mainly text, and through multiple channels online or offline. Offline feedback can be offered, for instance, in stores through interacting with a sales person or submitting a complaint or completing a survey, in promotional events, on the phone etc. Online feedback can be, for instance, social media posts, online forms, emails, digital surveys, chatbot dialogues etc. The different types and channels of feedback show that the customer journey goes through multiple channels and many touchpoints that should be somehow connected, monitored and analysed to offer a smooth overall experience to customers.
It becomes obvious that companies need to have two separate approaches, one to collect customer feedback and another to conduct customer feedback analysis. Many companies collect tons of customer feedback and fail to analyze the data to improve customer satisfaction and customer experience.
Analysis of customer feedback
Customer feedback analysis refers to a strategic process to review and analyze accumulated customer data. Interestingly, customer feedback analysis can be on a macro and micro scale. Since your customer feedback separates into qualitative and quantitative elements, you can create multiple stages to analyze the information. Today, customer feedback has become a goldmine for companies to discover new insights and understand their core strengths and weaknesses. The valuable information customers share with businesses allows organizations to transform their business processes and improve customer experience and customer satisfaction altogether. According to Gartner, “customers’ salient experiences with the company heavily influence their long-term switching behavior and reflect the true drivers of loyalty.”
Think of your customer feedback through the lens of qualitative and quantitative parameters that allows you to learn more about your customers and the value they feel they get from you and your product or service. Increased understanding of your target audience will improve your competitive advantage and the positioning of your products or services to achieve customer retention, avoid customer churn and get new customers. Understanding your customers, developing empathy towards their wants and needs, is closely connected to customer loyalty.
Focusing on text feedback, there is more than enough data that proves that an analytical approach to customer feedback through sentiment analysis and text mining works. The roll out of sentiment and text analytics allows you to make sense of your customer feedback without preconceived ideas. Sentiment analysis and text mining help understand the behavior, preferences and experiences of your customers and drive growth over time. You can use the same information to mitigate future challenges and render the best open-ended responses in every feedback channel.
Importance of text customer feedback
Once you collect a plethora of text customer feedback, you will need to be tactical about “how” you review information. And this is where sentiment analysis and text analytics enter the picture. By using such solutions you can identify the thoughts, expectations, and opinions of your customers about your products or services, the characteristics of your products and services, your customer service, and many more, which will allow you to segment your target audience. It is the best way to reposition your brand and empower your products and services.
Despite the industry and nature of your business, forming and maintaining healthy customer relationships is important. On top of measuring customer experience and satisfaction, analyzing and responding to customer feedback allows you to build solid customer relationships and showcase that you care. Such analysis helps you understand what makes your customers tick. Based on the findings of feedback analysis, you can understand what would and what wouldn’t make a useful conversion strategy and devise a more informed business strategy, drive product innovation, improve customer experience, increase customer satisfaction, and make meaningful business decisions. This means that you can identify elements that can influence business growth and generate more revenue. Also, you can revise your pricing strategy and gain a competitive edge based on what your customers say.
