By now, the importance of customer feedback should be drilled into your head. How to get customer feedback though isn’t always easy. There, sometimes, signs that are actually customer feedback but not always packaged so obviously. Some positive and some negative.  The signs can be picked up at different points in the customer journey. By being able to identify these signs you can get the valuable feedback you need.

Not buying

Before you complain this is not to say that every customer who does not buy from you has a message for you, though that is a message in itself. Here were are particularly looking at customers who have progressed down your pipeline or funnel but ultimately opted out. Their feedback is most valuable because they are more likely than not customers who were ready to spend money but opted to spend it on someone else or opted out altogether. Perhaps there’s something in your sales process or lack thereof that contributed to this. Perhaps your offer isn’t as good as you think it is. It is best to compare your current conversion rates with historical or industry average conversion rates to see if and where the problem may be.

Buying and not coming back

If you have a product that is normally resultant in repeat business a lack of repeat business is another customer feedback sign that isn’t always so obvious. Assuming all else is fair customers should always come back to your business and if you’re getting a lot of one-off customers it may give you a bit of much-needed information to interrogate your process. Are your products satisfying customers? If a customer has been regularly purchasing from you and suddenly stops remember the concept of inertia and how it takes more energy to stop an object in motion than to keep it in motion.

Increasing spend with you

The flip side of the previous point increasing their spend with you is a big feedback sign of the positive kind. It usually shows that they have been convinced of the value you offer and are willing to spend more and more with you because of the value they derive. This is probably one of the best pieces of feedback you can receive.

Talking about you

This one is a double-edged sword if ever there was one. To understand this, if you are twitter user simply conduct a search for tweets containing the word “Econet” you will see all kinds of mention of the telecommunications giant. Talking about your service is important customer feedback because it takes great motivation to talk about a brand or experience and you will invariably find that chatter involving you will either be enthusiastically positive or scathingly negative. Where opinions are basically the strongest. If you’ve got a recognisable brand I dare you to do this for your brand on a platform like twitter. If you are a small business you can do the same but for your industry or product and see what people are generally saying about it.

Referring people

Who doesn’t want this one? Your customers being so pleased with what you offer that they are prepared to lend you credibility with their friends and family. It’s ridiculously underrated but one of the best ways to grow your client base whether your business is big or small. Regardless of the size of your customer base imagine how big it would be by year-end if each customer you had, referred one additional customer every month. Referrals don’t always come as done deals yelling “shut up and take my money” they may still require conversion.

If you’re struggling to get customer feedback lookout for these signs in your business and do something about them.