The Benefits of Hiring a Consultant

How To Assess Customer Feedback If There's Not Much Available

6 April 2021 by Eddie Phillips

In the world of customer feedback analytics, one of the biggest challenges is dealing with sparse data. While it can be difficult, this sort of customer feedback analysis is often doable. Learn how how to tackle the problem of limited customer feedback when trying to perform analysis.

Creatively Find Sources of Data

Although the ideal scenario is to obtain direct feedback from confirmed customers, more indirect solutions are sometimes possible. One common approach is to use social media sentiment. People regularly express their feelings about products and services on social media platforms. You can harvest this information to assess the sentiments of customers.

The upside to this approach is that people are rarely conscious that companies are monitoring their social sentiments. Consequently, they may be more open about their feelings.

On the downside, you might capture information from some non-customers who are just referencing your brand. This is more common for widely known brands, and it generally doesn't create trouble for smaller businesses.

Use Statistical Methods

Nothing is inherently wrong with using feedback forms and ranked systems to get at information quickly. However, these methods usually work best when you can obtain large amounts of feedback. When you're running a bit low on analyzable data, you might need to dig into statistical techniques that allow you to enrich your existing pool.

For example, a random walk might be used to see how many times a randomized version of customer feedback matches your current situation. If you see massive deviations, even in a limited data set, it might be a sign that you need to seek more input to remedy the problem.

Become More Proactive

Sometimes, it's just simpler to ask people for feedback. Polling, for example, can help you expand your available data quickly. You also can conduct focus groups of existing customers to get a sense of what they feel about a product or service.

Develop a Feedback Loop

One potential advantage of a small group that's providing feedback is that they may be more engaged than the average consumer. If you develop a process for ongoing engagement with these folks, such as an annual online survey, you can harness their interest for the purposes of customer feedback analysis.

You also can loop them into the improvement process. If you introduce a new version of a product, for example, you can let them have early access and collect their feedback.

Contact a local or online customer feedback analysis service to learn more.

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