What NOT to ask while taking user Feedback

What NOT to ask while taking user Feedback?

For any business, understanding the user's point of view is quite essential. User feedback helps businesses create a customer-centric product. It also helps in improving product quality. It can also give a customer the right tool to convey their concerns about the product. Many businesses are aware of these benefits and do collect feedback.

But, many businesses don't get the required results. They receive false data, less data, or inconclusive responses. Because of these issues, businesses cannot act upon the feedback. But why does this happen?

The questions in any feedback are the essence of it. The more effective the questions, the more useful the answers. Wrong questions reduce the quality of the results. Even if different businesses ask different questions, there are some common mistakes. Let us look at them and then see how to improve the quality of customer feedback.

Asking Questions Whose Answers Don't Match

It is a part of a bigger problem. The questions themselves have errors. User feedback is not for the sake of formality. It is essential for business development. So, it is necessary to design the questions with care and consideration.

Proofreading the questions may seem too trivial to mention. But there are way too many feedbacks with wrong questions and answers to let this go. For example, suppose there is a question, what did you not like about the product? Next, the options for that question are easy to use, accurate, etc.

So, asking the question's what did you like about the product? was suitable for the options. These mistakes don't reflect well on the business. If a business hasn't spent time designing the questions well, would they read the responses? It can harm a company's brand image. It can also suggest that the company is more focused on quantity rather than quality.

So, to avoid such mistakes, businesses can have fewer feedback and questions. But, they can ensure that they are right and will help the business.

Asking mandatory Questions in the User Feedback

In almost all scenarios, making the questions compulsory will be a mistake. Consumers providing their feedback is a privilege for any business. Thus, making it mandatory might not be the best of strategies.

It is disrespectful to the consumers. If businesses force them to fill up data, then users can submit an inaccurate response. Moreover, consumers may opt out of the survey altogether because of it.

There is a difference between asking and making the customers give their opinion. It is a good sign if consumers are willing to spend some time providing feedback. Also, if businesses frame the questions well, then consumers will answer them anyway. So, companies must avoid practices like making text questions compulsory.

Asking For Unnecessary User Feedback

In many surveys, there are irrelevant questions that are time-consuming. Customer feedback is a necessity for the business and not for the buyer. Thus, the feedback must be as crisp and to the point as possible.

Asking for mail id, name, etc., is unnecessary when businesses already have this data. So, all feedback need not start with these questions.

If businesses have found a way to reach them, they don't expect these questions. So, try to avoid them at all costs. It will also make the questionnaire brief and reduce duplicate data. Thinking about whether each question is necessary will provide good results.

Providing a no-opinion option

The entire point of asking for user feedback is gathering user opinions. Then, how will adding the n/a option help? This situation usually arises when the questions are mandatory. If the questions are compulsory, this option makes them optional again. Furthermore, if the questions are optional, then customers can choose to answer anyways. So, there is no real need for the no-opinion option.

If customers have only this option to get out of answering a question is not good customer service. It also generates false data. It increases the number of responses. But, the quality of the user feedback is also questionable.

Asking the big questions too soon

There is a time and place for everything. Granted that the user feedback needs to be crisp. But making the consumers comfortable is also necessary. Questions about money, social status, etc., can cause discomfort. It also does not make for a great customer experience.

So, asking these questions at the start can make consumers uneasy. Moreover, some businesses tend to make these questions compulsory. This doesn't help in building trust. Let the users get familiar with the process, and then these questions can be included. Furthermore, it is best not to make them mandatory. Providing a choice goes a long way in increasing customer loyalty. Also, this way, the questions don't feel intimidating or uncomfortable.

Asking Questions They Can't Answer

There are many aspects of a business that customers may not know. Businesses know more about many factors than their consumers. So, including such questions makes it tough for all consumers to provide answers.

Also, some questions might seem obvious to business owners. But consumers are stumped while answering. It is not that they don't want to answer, but they don't know!

For example, suppose you ask for feedback on a video. Then questions like, ‘what makes a video stand out can make them think too much. Furthermore, if it is a text response, they might not know what to write.

Here's another example of questions that are near impossible to answer. ‘How many times do you buy this product?’ More often than none, customers don't keep track of these things. Very few people will remember the number of biscuit packets they have purchased. The feedback received is quite unreliable. Furthermore, analyzing actual purchasing data gives more accurate information in both scenarios.

Another type of difficult-to-answer question is prioritizing. Asking consumers to rank what they look for in a product. How are they supposed to know this? Also, how accurate is this data? Such types of questions are not for the consumers. They are for the analysts. Customer journey mapping will be helpful for these types of questions.

Asking an Opinion on Many Factors in One Question

For a successful customer feedback campaign, an essential mantra can be to keep it simple. Make it as easy as possible to understand and answer. Moreover, companies need to design the feedback in such a way that it gives actionable data.

So, asking whether the product was easy to use and functioning well may sound like one question. But these are two different things. A product can be easy to use but won't work, or vice versa. Now, if a consumer says yes to the question, it generates false data. In such cases, it is better to split them into two. It will provide way more quality results. They can mention if it was easy to use and functional.

Now, it also becomes easier for businesses to work on customer feedback. For example, two features are mixed together, and there are negative responses. How are they supposed to act on it? The product may already be functional but difficult to use. Making it two questions is more for businesses than it is for the users.

Including too many Subjective Questions in the User Feedback

After school is over, very few people are still used to writing essays. It is mentally more challenging to write something than tick a box. Providing a written response requires more effort. Customers are going to be discouraged from providing feedback this way.

Text-based questions are helpful in understanding the user mindset. It also provides deeper insights into the customer experience. So, they are important. But there needs to be a limit on their volume. Limiting them to 1 or at the most, two per feedback can be helpful.

Now, this was from a customer's point of view. There are adverse effects of open-ended questions for businesses as well. Suppose the number of responses received is huge. Now, that is a good sign for a business. But the trouble starts here. How will the business analyze these responses? If there are too many text-based questions, analyzing them is tough. Not to mention, time-consuming.

Open-ended questions can be a very good supportive tool. But, they cannot be the majority of the feedback. Keeping the number of subjective questions limited is good for the business.

So, these were some of the mistakes people make while taking customer feedback. Yes, there are many ways in which businesses can mess up feedback questions. But that doesn't mean it is futile to try on making it better. Looking at so many don'ts can be daunting.

But there is no reason to worry. When there are so many don'ts, one can wonder what we can actually do. Now, let us look at ways to increase effectiveness while collecting customer feedback.

So, these are some of the things businesses can avoid while taking user feedback. Feedspace is an excellent tool to collect testimonials and ensure a seamless user experience.