Forum Moderators: buckworks
If so, how do you collect feedback, guestbook, forums, phone?
1. Phone calls to our customer care department. These folks are the squeakiest wheels - so I hear about every little glitch and issue on the site.
2. Emails. 99.9% of the people who want to tell us about our site want to complain about it in some way, shape or form. Get enough of these responses and you get a good idea of what's working and what isn't on the site. The .1% that give us positive feedback usually get forwarded to the team. The reaaaaal scathing ones (especially those with InTeReStInG speeling and punc!tu!a!tion!) get forwarded as well.
3. Customer surveys. I survey my customers for a variety of reasons. Those who have used our site, those who are just visiting but not purchasing, and those who have used us but have never come back.
4. User testing. Not a true 'user' feedback - I bring in users for site testing almost every time we release a new version of the site. On-site usability studies have proven to be our absolute BEST indicator of what people like and don't like about the site. (The cool thing about this is you can slip in some ad testing and attitudes, awareness and usage stuff, too.)
My middle name is "Marketing Research." :)
We treasure every criticism about our site whether by phone (very rare) or by email. And we act on them. Large portions of our FAQ and shopping cart instructions have been written and rewritten as a result of feedback.
I've found that gimmicks like polls or something which requires the user to go through an effort - no matter how small - rarely does anything but take up space on the page. No matter what (unless you're giving something away that is worth the effort, which can be costly - even free things like promotional items cost you in shipping) people who are mildly dissatisfied simply close the window and move on. You're not the only game in town. People who are really PO'd will write you. People who are completely satisfied and happy will sometimes write to you and you can get more of these if your site is highly interactive and their positive comments to you end up being a result of them just naturally extending their "interactivity" during a given session.
Part of the trick is "Where" to put your "comments/suggestions" form/links. In fact, reading this message gave me a good idea for another place to add one on my site (thanks heini!). I need to add a link to my comments form on my "search page" when there are no results and give them a "what were you looking for?" reason to write me. From there I can determine if I need to improve search functionality because they're not finding things that really ARE there, or if there is stuff I need to get my hands on.
I'll tell you, though, that feedback is really good to get. The basic complaints and "Hey, I get an error when I do X" comments are nice because they give you your list of things to fix up. The HATE mail rants are just fun because 99.44% of them (that's almost pure, you know) are so out in left field that it's like reading those footnotes in Reader's Digest right in your own inbox. And, the positive ones (or general complaints with a nice positive comment in there somewhere) are the ones that keep you going day in and day out.
As for polls - I'd avoid them at all costs. Giving people a choice limits them and doesn't allow them to say what's REALLY on their minds. Even with a write-in box, if there is one that is kinda sorta like what they are thinking, they'll pick it, and the root of their problem could very well be something very very simple for you to fix rather than a broad and major task you've created for yourself by "suggesting a problem" that never existed.
G.
Any recommendations for free scripts?
Survey Monkey [surveymonkey.com] offers an excellent service with free basic accounts and a paid professional option.
Any other thoughts on surveys?
Survey your existing customer base to establish exactly why they chose to make a purchase with you and tailor your site to highlight those features and benefits. Find out what their other needs are to custom tailor back end offerings, premium services, and the development of new products.
Try using an exit pop up for a limited time to solicit feedback from those that didn't purchase to find out why.
Yes, have a write-in form, too. All polls should have those.
I include the usual feedback form (which no-one ever fills in) but by far the best results I got was from running a competition on the site.
To enter the competition users had to find a graphic on the site, which was a mailto like this:
mailto:competition@example.com?subject=competition&body=please%20give%20us%20some%20feedback%20on%20our%20site
Everyone who entered gave us feedback. It was all good, so I began to wonder if we had a great site for our users or if they just thought they might have a better chance of winning a prize if they said something nice :)
