What’s the best tool for soliciting feedback about your product, service or website, and why does it work well?
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1. Asking and Listening
Ask customers, members of your team and trusted people around you. It doesn’t matter the platform, be it a survey, email or in-person conversation. What matters is that you really listen to what they have to say with an open mind, impartially and without getting defensive. It can be tough sometimes, but it’s always worth it.
– Ophir Tanz, GumGum
2. Wyzerr
Customers usually dislike surveys and feedback forms, as they are long, repetitive and boring. Wyzerr’s “smart” forms adapt as the user answers the questions, using gamification to entice responses. The result is more consumer responses and fully completed surveys.
– Beck Bamberger, BAM Communications
3. Analyzing Behavior Patterns
Nothing speaks better than actual user data, that is why we spend a lot of time analyzing patterns of behavior within our products. Also, A/B tests will give you a much more relevant and applicable answer — we utilize them a lot. We found out that customers were never interested in features users supposedly like in surveys once we implemented them in our app.
– Ivan Tsybaev, Trucker Path, Inc
4. Emailing
Email is still one of the best tools for soliciting feedback. With a bit of digging, you can reach just about anyone. If you’re already collecting customer data, you should have access to numerous people who can provide you with valuable feedback with regards to your product, service or website. Your email list is also an invaluable resource for conducting surveys.
– Ismael Wrixen, FE International
5. Doing Monthly Calls
We keep in monthly contact with every single client. This helps build our relationship with each client. In turn, they feel more comfortable giving us honest feedback about the work we are performing. Because of these calls, our clients feel comfortable calling or emailing us anytime there is an issue. It also helps to eliminate problems in the early stages.
– Phil Laboon, Eyeflow Internet Marketing
6. Shopper Approved
For my website, I use Shopper Approved. Shopper Approved is easy to set up, provides feedback from only individuals who have purchased your product, and allows you to display your rating on PPC ads and organic SERPS, as well as on your website. I personally read every review, and the real-time feedback helps us spot trends and potential issues with our site.
– Patrick Barnhill, Specialist ID, Inc.
7. Using Third Party Companies
Hiring a third party company to conduct customer interviews, surveys, etc. is the best way to elicit unbiased, honest and useful information from actual buyers or potential buyers. This works well because you have eliminated any factors that might influence someone’s opinion. They can speak freely and unabashedly.
– Andrew Kucheriavy, Intechnic
8. UserTesting.com
UserTesting.com gives you unedited videos of people using your site and talking about their experience. These are people from your target demographic, trying to accomplish tasks you set out for them. As soon as you watch three or four, you’ll notice patterns in use, which will inform you on how to improve your product design.
– Aaron Schwartz, Modify
9. Invision
The InVision app makes it easier than ever to prototype and test new web or app designs. This tool allows you to invite team members or even customers to collaborate by providing notes and feedback right on top of the design mockup. It’s easy to use because the mockups are accessible online from anywhere, by anyone you invite, and the UI is quite intuitive.
– Andy Karuza, FenSens
10. SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey works well because it’s easy to implement and has multiple features that allows you to gather all of the feedback and data you could ever need. You can completely brand the surveys and deploy them via email or social media, in addition to housing them on your website. Several third party integrations are also available. For example, we have used the platform together with Mailchimp.
– Jonathan Long, Market Domination Media
11. Qualaroo
Qualaroo is a great tool that lets you set up a question or set of questions that pop up for users on your website. It’s easy to set up and runs automatically, which can give you more results than an email survey or reaching out to users individually. Best of all, the tool comes pre-populated with many questions you can ask your users, such as Net Promoter Score or Signup Hesitation.
12. MixPanel
What users say and what they do are two totally separate things. It is great to hear the thoughts of your users, but to get the whole picture you need to see how they use your product. There’s no better way to do this than to drill down into individual actions and users (far beyond what Google Analytics provides), and this is where the event-based analytics of MixPanel shine through.
– James Simpson, GoldFire Studios
13. Using Post-Project Client Surveys
A short survey at the end of the project works great. Keep it to a few questions that are critical to learning how to improve, why you were chosen, what went wrong/right, and perhaps ask for a testimonial. Disgruntled clients give the best feedback on how to improve. Happy clients give excellent testimonials.
– Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design
14. TryMyUI.com
It’s a pretty awesome tool because not only does it cost less than most usability testing services out there, it gives you the same services. You get a video of the user’s screen as he or she uses your website. You also get written answers to a questionnaire. If you have your own users, TryMyUI will actually curate and send your questionnaire out to your own users at their email address.
15. Desk.com
We’ve been using Desk support for our support for the past year and find it one of the easiest ways for our customers to solicit feedback, questions and suggest features out there. It’s easy to use, quick to install and works like a champ. We couldn’t live without it and our customers feel the same.
– John Rampton, Due
Updated: August 2021
