How to Track Customer Feedback: Tools, Systems, and Best Practices 

Customer feedback gives you valuable insight into what drives customers to buy. It’s the key to understanding what your customers feel or think about your business. 

However, you must gather and analyze customer feedback. Only then will you get any meaningful insights from customer responses. And that’s no easy task, given that customer feedback takes many different shapes and forms. 

This article is your guide on how to track customer feedback. It answers these five key questions: 

1. What is feedback tracking, and why is it important? 

2. How do you collect customer feedback? 

3. What are the best strategies for managing customer feedback? 

4. What does it take to build a customer feedback strategy? 

5. Which customer feedback tools should you be using? 

Why Tracking Customer Feedback Matters 

Customer feedback is basically any information customers provide about their experience with your brand, products, or services. The input could be in the form of reviews, ratings, emails, face-to-face conversations, social media comments, phone calls, or interviews. 

Why is that important? 

The Link Between Feedback, Loyalty, and Growth 

In many cases, customer feedback tells you exactly what you’re doing wrong or right. You get a glimpse of your business from the customer’s point of view. For instance, you can quickly identify problematic areas that need improvement. Or, you could use customer suggestions and opinions to inform product design, service delivery, or your business model. 

In short, customer feedback guides you in solving customer pain points and meeting the market’s expectations or preferences. That’s essential for business growth and survival. Customer feedback can indeed drive innovation and agility in your business. 

Additionally, tracking customer feedback strengthens customer relationships. Whenever you invite or act on a customer’s response, that customer feels valued, heard, and connected. 

RELATED ARTICLE — Beyond Reviews: How Customer Feedback Can Drive Business Growth 

Common Challenges Without a Feedback System 

You need a robust customer feedback management (CFM) system to get the most out of customer feedback. Without it, managing feedback is tedious, time-consuming, messy, and discouraging work. 

Let’s say you receive dozens or hundreds of customer reviews, calls, and support queries on a daily basis. Imagine painstakingly reviewing each feedback manually. That would quickly overwhelm and frustrate you. And the worst part is that you still won’t see the big picture of overall customer satisfaction. 

Customer feedback management software saves you a great deal of trouble and headache. It does so by gathering and organizing data from multiple customer touchpoints. It then analyzes that data to draw measurable customer sentiments and satisfaction scores. 

Methods for Collecting Customer Feedback 

How do you collect customer feedback? 

There are many ways you can gather feedback from customers. Let’s look at six of the most effective techniques for collecting useful customer feedback. 

Surveys 

Have your customers take simple surveys. Not the typical full-blown research surveys, but rather short surveys with one or two basic questions. 

Use surveys to gauge three types of customer metrics: 

• Net promoter score (NPS): NPS measures your customers’ loyalty and advocacy. Here’s a typical NPS survey question: “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” The customer then selects one of these answers: “Highly Unlikely,” “Likely,” or “Highly Likely.” 

• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT): CSAT tells you how satisfied a customer is immediately after they interact with your business. It works by asking customers to rate their satisfaction or experience (for example, on a scale of 1-5). 

• Customer effort score (CES): This metric gauges how easy it is for customers to complete a particular task. You get CES by asking questions like, “On a scale of 1 to 5, how easy was it to find the product you’ve just purchased?” 

Interviews and Focus Groups 

You can gather in-depth feedback via structured conversations with customers. Interviews are great for sourcing qualitative feedback. Plus, interviews provide a unique emotional context behind customer responses. 

Focus groups are another excellent source of customer truth. All you have to do is assemble a handful of individuals in a neutral environment. Then ask them to share their honest opinions or views on your service, product, or brand. 

Social Listening and Online Reviews 

Social listening means monitoring social media platforms for mentions of your business or its offerings. Doing so gives you organic and unsolicited customer feedback. 

Reviews are the most common and trusted forms of customer feedback. A majority of customers check online reviews before buying anything. And 42% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Checking reviews can tell you a lot about what customers think of your services or products. 

In-App and Website Feedback Widgets 

Feedback widgets are small interactive components on websites and smartphone apps. They are designed to capture customer feedback in real time. For instance, you can configure a widget to prompt users for feedback after taking certain actions. 

Support Interactions and Chat Transcripts 

Support and chatbot interactions are rich sources of customer feedback. You can get that feedback by collecting and analyzing calls to customer support, chat transcripts, and support tickets. 

In many cases, customers contact support to lodge complaints or request technical assistance. By analyzing these conversations, you can identify customer pain points or issues with your product or services. 

Emerging AI Channels 

AI has become a powerful tool for sourcing and analyzing customer feedback. For example, smart chatbots can be configured to solicit customer feedback. 

Voice-of-customer feedback tools are also getting the AI makeover. Some of these tools are equipped with state-of-the-art AI capabilities, including natural language processing and sentiment analytics. That means they’re capable of collecting and analyzing feedback all on their own. They can even generate automated responses. 

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS— The Best Times & Channels to Request Customer Feedback 

How to Organize and Track Feedback Effectively 

Collection is only a small part of feedback management. What should you do once you have the feedback? 

As customer feedback continues to accumulate, you need ways to keep things organized. Start by breaking down the input into more digestible chunks. Then, arrange the feedback data in a way that makes it easier to draw patterns, sentiments, and insights. 

Here’s how to do just that. 

Categorizing Feedback by Theme 

Create categories that group related feedback data together. For example, you could have a category for feedback on products, feedback on services, or feedback from interactions with support. 

This is a divide-and-conquer strategy. Filtering feedback by theme enables you to pinpoint complaints or praise directed to specific areas of your business. 

Prioritizing Action Items by Impact 

Some feedback items require prompt action. For example, questions that might lead to a sale or a serious complaint from a disgruntled customer may require immediate response. Prioritize such feedback requiring swift action. Also, prioritize feedback with a high impact on customer experience. 

Use a digital tool to create a dynamic feedback priority list. Choose a tool that can alert your team to urgent or high-priority feedback entries. 

Integrating Feedback into Workflows 

Incorporate feedback management into everyday operations. Embed feedback tools into your core platforms like your customer-facing website, support console, and CRM. Doing so will enable your team to manage feedback in real-time. 

On the same note, allow feedback to drive action. Act on feedback-generated insights as quickly as you can. 

Customer Feedback Management Systems 

Let’s discuss customer feedback management platforms. These are the tools you need to collect, track, and analyze customer feedback. 

What Is a Customer Feedback Management System? 

A customer feedback management system is a specialized digital solution. The system helps businesses gather and organize customer feedback. It then analyzes the raw feedback data, turning it into actionable business insights. 

Features to Look For 

What exactly do you need from a customer feedback management platform? 

Well, modern CFM systems come with all sorts of bells and whistles. It can be difficult to figure out what’s useful and what’s not. 

Below is a checklist of essential features and capabilities for a CFM solution: 

• Multi-channel feedback capture 

• AI-powered analytics 

• Centralized feedback storage 

• AI-driven automation 

• Smart feedback prioritization 

• Easy integration with existing workflows 

• Feedback sharing and tagging across multiple teams 

• Customizable, easy-to-use interface 

• Robust security 

• Scalable capabilities 

Benefits vs Manual Tracking 

You can indeed track feedback manually. Collect feedback from the various channels and maybe organize it in a spreadsheet. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

However, using purpose-built software makes the whole process so much easier. A customer feedback management system presents several benefits over manual tracking: 

• Saves time thanks to automation 

• Consolidates feedback in a unified collection hub 

• Reduces errors in feedback management 

• Expands your capacity to handle more feedback 

• Generates AI-driven insights and recommendations 

• Improves feedback response rate 

• Eliminates biases in feedback analysis 

FROM ONE OF OUR PARTNERS— How to Reduce Customer Churn (With Customer Data) 

Best Customer Feedback Tools and Platforms 

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of CFM software applications out there. In fact, businesses are spoilt for choice when it comes to customer feedback tools. 

The problem is, not all CFM solutions are equal. So, how do you choose the right tool for your business? 

Let’s start by exploring some of the top options in the software market. 

Top Customer Feedback Management Platforms 

Here’s our pick of the top five customer management systems: 

Zendesk 

Zendesk is primarily a helpdesk software meant to streamline support operations. But it also provides a robust customer feedback software. 

It draws feedback from multiple customer service channels, including AI agents. The input goes into a unified dashboard. You can then use a suite of intelligent tools to track, organize, analyze, and share feedback across the organization. 

Medallia 

Medallia is a CX platform with a feature-rich feedback management system. It captures experience signals across channels as they happen. That includes speech, video, and behavior, painting a holistic view of customer experience. 

Salesforce 

Salesforce is one of the most popular CRM platforms around. It also hosts a powerful feedback management system. 

The platform is an all-round feedback management solution that lets you create and deploy surveys, capture feedback from multiple channels, gain qualitative feedback, and generate actionable data from feedback. 

Qualtrics 

Qualtrics’ Voice of the Customer platform is designed to drive customer satisfaction. It captures feedback in real time from customer surveys, digital behavior, and interactions. AI tools then analyze that data, turning it into insights you can act on. 

SurveyMonkey 

SurveyMonkey collects customer feedback through expert forms and surveys. There’s a huge collection of survey templates and types to choose from. And a resourceful AI tool that helps you design engaging custom surveys. 

Once in, survey results are analyzed to unlock business insights. You can also segment customers based on survey results and use the data for targeting. 

Comparison: General-purpose vs Specialized Tools 

When choosing a CFM tool, you must weigh your options between general-purpose platforms and specialized systems. 

What’s the difference between general-purpose and specialized solutions? 

General-purpose platforms like SurveyMonkey can serve multiple purposes. They are not exclusively designed for collecting or tracking feedback. They can still meet at least most of the basic feedback management needs. However, they may be limited in their capabilities. 

Specialized CFM tools are purpose-built for feedback management. Platforms like Medallia and Qualtrics have advanced features for comprehensive feedback tracking and analysis. These are a bit more sophisticated and pricier than the general-purpose alternatives. But you get a lot more bang for your buck. 

How to Choose the Right Tool for Your Business 

Choosing the right CFM tool can be overwhelming. For one, you have countless options. Secondly, there’s quite a lot to consider. It’s easy to get stuck when trying to decide between products, features, vendors, and prices. 

Don’t worry, though. Just follow these five steps when choosing the best customer feedback tools for your business. 

1. Identify your goals. Figure out exactly what you want from a customer feedback management system. What problems are you looking to solve? 

2. List the key features to look for. Make a checklist of the digital features needed to achieve your objectives. Have a vision of the ideal CFM system for your business. 

3. Set a budget. How much are you willing to spend on a feedback tool? Set a budget range that gets you good value for money without compromising the software’s capabilities. 

4. Shop around. Check out the available options. Look for tools with features matching the desired capabilities within your price range. 

5. Try out different options. Once you’ve narrowed down a selection of products, try them out. Most vendors offer a free trial period or demo. Sample each software in your shortlist to see which fits best. 

Best Practices for Feedback Management 

Customer feedback is a rich and valuable business intelligence resource. But it’s only useful when harvested and utilized the right way. 

Here’s what you must do to fully leverage customer feedback. 

Ensure Feedback Is Continuous 

Feedback collection, tracking, and analysis are not one-off processes. 

Customers write reviews, make calls, and contact support all the time. Feedback is mixed and dynamic too. There’s no such thing as consistently good or consistently bad feedback. 

The point is, you can’t just hit pause on feedback management. That’s because feedback never stops coming and never stops changing. 

Close the Loop with Customers 

Closed-loop feedback follows four key steps: 

1. Listen. Pay close attention to what the customer says. 

2. Analyze. Dig deeper into the intention and sentiment behind the feedback. 

3. Act. Take action on the insights gained from the feedback. 

4. Report back. Inform the customer how their input made a difference. 

The premise of closing the loop is pretty simple. It’s about going beyond just collecting and analyzing feedback. It’s about demonstrating the importance of feedback to customers—showing that their voice can drive real changes in your business. This results in improved customer trust, retention, loyalty, and satisfaction. 

The numbers do not lie. CustomerGauge found that closing the loop led to 3x the number of promoters in future NPS surveys. 

Share Insights Across Teams 

Customer feedback and insights are company-wide resources. Do not restrict them to just your CX team. Spread those insights to all departments, including marketing, product design, and support. Let everyone know what the customer thinks and feels about the business. 

RELATED ARTICLE — Tracking Employee Performance with Customer Feedback: A Win-Win for Your Team 

Use Feedback to Fuel Innovation and Customer Loyalty 

We’ll say it again: do not sit on customer feedback. Put the feedback to work. Use the insights generated to drive real innovation and boost CX. 

You don’t have to look far to see customer feedback in action. One good example is Netflix. The company quickly recognized a shift in consumer preferences and behavior. That sparked the innovation that turned it into one of the largest streaming services today. 

LEGO is even bolder with feedback-driven innovations. The toy company openly invites its customers to suggest new set ideas. LEGO essentially gets free product development ideas this way, boosting customer engagement, loyalty, and experience in the process. 

That’s the undeniable power of feedback in promoting innovation and customer retention. 

Building a Customer Feedback Strategy 

Develop a solid plan to make the most of customer feedback. Here are three pointers for making that happen. 

Define Goals and Success Metrics 

We’ve already discussed formulating CFM goals. Now use those goals to define specific success metrics. Those metrics may include: 

• Higher customer survey scores 

• Lower customer churn rate 

• Better customer lifetime value 

• Faster feedback response 

• Shorter resolution times 

• Higher product/service adoption rate 

• Lower complaint escalation rate 

• Greater feedback volume 

Map the Customer Journey for Feedback Touchpoints 

Identify the various feedback touchpoints along the customer journey. To do that, you must map the customer’s entire journey. Feedback touchpoints are areas where customers might interact with your brand, either directly or indirectly. 

Key feedback touchpoints may include: 

• Webpages 

• Social media 

• Email 

• Online ads 

• Physical point of sale 

• Events such as conventions, forums, and fairs 

• Sales calls 

• Customer support tickets 

• Chatbots 

Create a Feedback Culture Across the Organization 

Feedback management is a company-wide responsibility. Ensure everyone plays their part in collecting, analyzing, and acting on customer feedback. 

Use these tips to build a feedback culture across your organization: 

• Establish a customer-centric business model. 

• Train your staff on effective feedback management. 

• Equip employees with the necessary tools to track and leverage feedback. 

• Integrate customer feedback into everyday workflows. 

• Share customer feedback widely. 

• Lay out effective customer feedback loops. 

• Continuously track CFM key performance indicators. 

• Incentivize excellent feedback management efforts. 

FAQs on Customer Feedback Tracking 

How often should customer feedback be collected? 

Ideally, collect feedback immediately after every customer interaction. Meanwhile, customer relationship feedback can be collected every few weeks or months. 

What’s the difference between NPS, CSAT, and CES? 

Net promoter score (NPS) measures your customers’ loyalty and advocacy. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) gauges customer satisfaction levels after they’ve interacted with your business. Customer effort score (CES) checks how easy it is for customers to complete a particular task. 

What makes a good customer feedback management tool? 

A good feedback management tool provides comprehensive feedback management. It handles everything—real-time feedback collection, consolidation, tracking, analysis, and reporting. It must also be easy to use, customizable, scalable, and reasonably priced. 

How do you analyze large volumes of customer feedback? 

You need an AI-powered customer feedback platform to analyze large volumes of feedback. Such a system can use natural language processing, machine learning, and other advanced techniques to seamlessly draw customer sentiments and intentions from a huge collection of diverse feedback entries. 

Conclusion 

Let’s wrap things up with a quick summary of the key takeaways. 

Quick-start Checklist for Implementing a Feedback Management System 

• Define your feedback management goals and objectives. 

• Find the relevant feedback touchpoints across the customer journey. 

• Get everyone on board with customer feedback management. 

• Equip your staff and departments with essential CFM tools. 

• Make customer feedback part of company-wide workflows. 

Next Steps: Choosing Tools and Building Feedback Loops 

• Research the best CFM tools that fit your business’s requirements. 

• Leverage every customer feedback touchpoint. 

• Track, organize, and prioritize feedback based on theme, urgency, and potential impact. 

• Act upon feedback-generated insights. 

• Let customers know that what they say matters. 

• Track key metrics to gauge your feedback management efforts.