How to develop a solid customer feedback strategy in 6 steps

This is the ultimate guide to creating a powerful customer feedback strategy: learn how to collect, share, and analyze feedback—and get actionable ideas on what to do with your new insights—for business and customer success. 

6 steps to build a customer feedback framework that works

A solid customer feedback strategy involves creating a customer feedback loop: a cycle of continuously asking for feedback and implementing changes and improvements. This lets you develop your product while getting feedback that tells you if customers react positively to the changes you make. 

Use the steps below as a replicable framework to help build your own customer feedback strategy and create a sustainable feedback loop—so you can consistently meet customer needs and improve satisfaction:

1. Define feedback goals

You first need to set goals to develop a feedback loop that forms the basis of your customer feedback strategy—for example, finding out what customers think of your support service or your website design changes.

Once you’ve determined your goals, design a feedback campaign by choosing the research methods and customer feedback software that gives you the most relevant insights and answers. Here’s how: 

• Develop your ideal customer profile (ICP) to understand your customers, and create user personas to help you segment your best customer type(s) based on key demographics, pain points, and purchasing behaviors

• Segment your customers with tools like Segment to better understand your product and customer goals for each customer segment—and to guide your questions and feedback strategy

• Pick the right tools based on your customer feedback goals. Let’s say your SaaS startup wants to measure the success of its product page within a specific customer segment. Use product experience insights tools like Hotjar's Feedback widgets for fresh customer insights in the wild, or watch Recordings of user sessions as customers fill out feedback on your product page for deeper insights into the customer experience.

2. Collect feedback 

How you gather feedback largely depends on your customers’ motivators, blockers, and needs—and which feedback collection methods resonate with them. 

For example, if your ecommerce business notices customers are less likely to offer feedback through post-purchase email surveys, you might decide to change how and where you ask for feedback—like placing a feedback widget on a post-checkout success page for immediate insights into their shopping experience.

When asking for feedback, consider your target audience's most relevant channels and be specific about what you want to know. Here’s how: 

• Use sentiment analysis tools like Brandwatch to spot any mentions of your product or brand across social media channels for unsolicited, emotionally-driven customer feedback

• Check out popular review websites, like Capterra, Trustpilot, TrustRadius, and G2, for product reviews and competitor analysis—and get insights into product-market fit, market gaps, and potential product features

• Use unobtrusive feedback widgets for quick temperature checks on customer experiences and frustrations. Place them on key conversion pages—like landing, checkout, home, and product pages—to see what delights customers or blocks them along their journey.

•  Place timed surveys throughout the customer journey. Use CSAT surveys for feedback on short-term customer satisfaction, and exit-intent surveys to understand why customers decide to leave a webpage. 

• A/B test website features or new page designs, and get customer feedback on specific variants to elevate and personalize the customer experience. For example,  let’s say your user experience (UX) team wants to test CTA button placement and colors on various customer types. They could A/B test a variety of buttons and measure their success on different segments to better engage and retain customers. 

3. Analyze customer feedback 

To better prioritize and act on customer feedback, you first need to analyze and interpret it—and look for patterns in product usage, customer satisfaction, and immediate fixes or bugs. 

Sort your feedback based on feedback type and volume to better analyze and spot any issues that need to be addressed. 

So, how do you analyze customer feedback to glean crucial customer insights? 

• Group feedback based on demographics and quantitative data—like CSAT and NPS scores—and qualitative feedback—like surveys, feedback forms, and focus groups—for deeper insights into customer behavior and feedback across customer segments

• Use feedback analytics tools like InMoment to code and categorize your feedback and create detailed reports that recommend action plans based on your findings

• Visualize customer feedback with dynamic dashboards that show you live charts of customer sentiment scores and incoming feedback. For example, after spotting a low customer sentiment score, your product design team might look into specific market trends or patterns in customer behavior for more detailed insights to make consumer-backed product improvements.

4. Share customer feedback 

You need to share customer feedback across teams, so you can act fast to resolve any customer concerns or problems. 

Not only does sharing feedback across the board help unify disparate teams around a common goal, but it also gives you insights from both customer-facing and non-customer-facing teams for more unified decision-making. 

How to easily share customer feedback across teams: 

• Use intuitive dashboards that help your teams visualize key customer feedback and insights—and easily spot areas of improvement across departments

• Highlight important feedback and activity: use Hotjar Highlights to filter out the noise and extract key customer insights and feedback. Then, share your highlighted snippets across teams and create collections of related insights for easy access to crucial customer opinions. 

• Utilize workplace messaging apps to unite your teams and quickly share important customer feedback. For example, use Hotjar’s Slack integration to get incoming feedback and survey responses about problems like a buggy sign-in on your app. Your product team can then jump in to resolve the problem before it negatively impacts the customer experience.

5. Act on your insights

Once you’ve sorted customer feedback based on volume and type—and shared it across teams—decide what needs immediate attention and improvement, and what to add to your product backlog for future development. 

Prioritize customer requests that directly contribute to their experience, so they can quickly see the value of your product. 

How to act on your insights to ensure customer delight: 

• Fix any urgent issues or bugs that negatively impact the customer experience and take less time to implement. For example, after receiving feedback about a broken checkout link, your ecommerce team needs to act quickly to fix the link and improve customer retention. 

• Prioritize your product roadmap around updates or features that help your customers achieve their goals and complete their tasks—and better highlight your unique selling point (USP)

• Manage your product backlog by reviewing and prioritizing tasks regularly. Make sure you delete tasks that are no longer necessary, and update your processes to reflect your current product and customer goals.

6. Follow up with customers 

To empathize with your customers and identify product improvements, you need to ask them about their experience with your brand and product post-purchase.

When you follow up with your customers, you get valuable insights into product adoption, usability, and success—and the ability to make customer-backed product decisions. 

So, how do you follow up and engage with your customers post-purchase? 

• Ask for feedback: have customers rate their experience and provide a reason for their score. If you’re using Hotjar's Feedback tools, customers can highlight parts of your website or product they like or dislike, giving you actionable insights to improve their experience.  

• Use surveys to gauge customer satisfaction with your product. Use B2B usability surveys to understand B2B product adoption and usability; NPS® surveys for feedback on long-term customer satisfaction and referral rates; and product-market fit surveys to determine market viability and product success.

Level up your customer feedback strategy with PX insights 

Your customer feedback strategy should revolve around making sure your feedback loop has no barriers—and that you’re consistently using feedback to update your product and customer experience. 

Use this guide to bolster your customer feedback strategy and spot any gaps in your process. This not only shows your customers that you’re listening to them but also leads to a streamlined customer experience. And, when you combine customer-backed insights with product experience (PX) insights tools, you can determine exactly what’s driving their feedback—so you know what to improve and why.