Increase Customer Feedback at No Cost

First let me fulfil last month's promise to tell you the result of my test on the effect  of the newsletter subject line on the opening rate.

In fact the open rate of 22% was very much on the average so no boost achieved.  Perhaps you readers are a bit cynical now about striking claims in headlines.  But do you still read newspapers?  I now suspect the main factor in determining whether or not you open an email is your relationship with the sender.

This month's subject is on the scope for using automated email responses to gain feedback without any extra effort - apart from setting up the mechanisms in the first place. 

For anybody who has contacted you online either via an enquiry form, downloading information or making a purchase, you will know their name and email address, the nature of the contact, and any follow up you have already undertaken. More of these contacts will not have resulted in a sale than have actually graduated to being customers.

Even it they have not subscribed to a newsletter, I think it is still acceptable to send them one more email.  This should not be long, simply enough to determine if they were happy with the service they received when they asked for information.  The email should address them personally, remind them of the service they requested, and simply ask them if they were satisfied or not.

Put Yes or No buttons on the email each linked to a page on your website.  If the recipient clicks on either you have a first measure of satisfaction.  When they land on the appropriate page, you can ask them a follow-up question.  If Yes, you could ask whether they would recommend your site to others and what improvements they suggest.  If No, would they like a support call to try and supply a better answer or is your service not appropriate to their needs.

The only need for your time is when someone requests a further call.  BUT remember that the negatives are actually much more valuable than the positives.  The criticisms can give you clues for improvements and enable you to understand customer needs better.  Positive answers are very nice to have, but do not provide such suggestions for improvement.

Apart from such personal contact, all the other information can be gathered and processed automatically.  So, over time, you have a record of your service level to those who were sufficiently interested to ask for more but had not quite reached the point of conversion to a client.  i.e. feedback from the most important group of potential new clients.