Whether it’s an unhappy complaint or a five-star review, customer feedback can be an invaluable resource for company leaders looking to improve upon their products, services or business operations. This feedback can spark either minor or major changes, but both can have a big impact on customer satisfaction and overall sales if implemented correctly.
To share some of the most informative feedback they’ve ever received from a customer, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council relay their stories below. Here’s what customers had to say about their products or services and the lessons these business leaders learned as a result.
Members pictured from left to right.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. ‘Your Product Is Too Expensive’
The most informative feedback I ever received was when a customer felt our product was too expensive. It was not negative; instead, it was constructive criticism from that customer. They said they would be willing to pay a higher price if the quality was better, but they felt it was not worth the price we were charging. This feedback was very helpful in informing our pricing strategy going forward. We held several product meetings after that honest feedback. We decided which features could be added to our product that would solve related issues that our customers may face daily. Further, we added those features and fine-tuned our pricing plans. The improvement was positive, and we’ve received a lot of good feedback from customers ever since. – Kelly Richardson, Infobrandz
2. ‘The Return Process Is Cumbersome And Ineffective’
The most informed feedback we have ever received from a customer was regarding “delivery timing and product returns” for one of our e-commerce brands. This customer was dissatisfied with the product return process since it ate a lot of their time, and they were unhappy with a couple of past transactions. They had contacted customer support several times but did not get a resolution, and they had reached out to us through the website contact form. Our ground survey found a lot of issues with the delivery partner services, such as job sluggishness and lack of training. We ended up canceling the contract with that specific delivery service and brought a new vendor into the picture. This experience helped us become more stringent with quality-control checks, especially customer support and delivery services. – Brian David Crane, Spread Great Ideas
3. ‘There’s No Proof That You’re Selling A Quality Product’
I’ll never forget when a customer showed me why we need social proof like reviews on our site. Their feedback on our support channel was, “How do we know you’re selling a quality product?” I knew if one person felt this way, others must too. I quickly realized the importance of asking customers to leave reviews. Reviews show that your business is trusted by real shoppers and will result in more on-site engagement. I learned from this feedback in other ways too. For example, I also use live sales notifications and trust seals to show social proof on my site. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
4. ‘You’re Not Valuing Your Services Highly Enough’
The best feedback I ever received from a customer was that I should charge more. This feedback completely changed how I was doing business previously and taught me an important lesson about the value of my work. Before, I was undercharging for my services and not valuing my own time and expertise enough. This feedback helped me to realize that I am worth more than I was previously giving myself credit for and that I need to be confident in my pricing in order to be successful. This was a valuable lesson that has helped me grow my business and better serve my clients. – Sujay Pawar, CartFlows
5. ‘You Shouldn’t Speak Negatively About Your Competition’
The best feedback I ever received from a customer, and the most painful to hear, was, “Never talk negatively about your competition.” The reason they told me this was because I had done just that. I knew from other customers’ experiences that a purchase this customer was about to make from a competitor was substandard to my product and every other company with a similar offering. I felt they would make a big mistake by buying that product. But, instead of tactfully touting the virtues of my product over the company in question, I bluntly told them that the company they were considering doing business with misled prospective customers with false statements and didn’t follow through on promises they made when they were attempting to gain the sale. They called me out on that, and it was a lesson I never forgot. – Brian Greenberg, Insurist
6. ‘Your Website’s Load Time Is Too Slow’
I once received very informative feedback from one of my customers that led to major improvements for the site. The customer contacted us via chat and complained that our website was taking forever to load. We acted swiftly on the feedback and found that the complaint was genuine. The website indeed had load time issues. The feedback we received from that one customer paved the way for us to improve our website’s load time for a better user experience. In time, we acknowledged a significant increase in our organic traffic along with user engagement. From this, I learned the value of customer feedback and found that paying attention to suggestions from your customers definitely pays off. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
7. ‘One Of Your Employees Is Disrespectful’
We had a customer support executive on our team who was rude and being generally unhelpful. One of our customers reached out to me on social media and reported feeling frustrated and disrespected by this executive. This feedback was eye-opening for us. To avoid such problems, we implemented a customer satisfaction survey to get feedback from customers about their experiences with our team. Through this survey, we learned that the majority of our customers were happy with our service, but a significant minority were not. This feedback helped us to make changes in our team to improve the customer experience. – Abhijeet Kaldate, Astra WordPress Theme
8. ‘Your Product Is Missing A Key Feature’
One of the best pieces of feedback that I have ever received from a customer was when a customer told me that our product was missing an important feature that would make it even better. In response to this feedback, I worked closely with my team to design and implement this new feature, which resulted in increased satisfaction and engagement from our customers. Overall, this feedback taught me several important lessons about listening to customers and incorporating their ideas into our product. I learned that it is crucial to remain open-minded when receiving customer feedback, and that incorporating their suggestions can help us create a more valuable and successful product. – Adam Preiser, WPCrafter