Listening to Customers: Surveys, Calls, & Beyond

You’re talking to a friend in a coffee shop … and responding to several missed text messages. You’re on the phone with your aunt … and purging your inbox. Sound familiar?

It’s easy to see why listening has become a dying art. We have distractions galore, and multitasking has become a commonly accepted practice. But in business, you can’t put listening to customers on the back burner. Because if you’re not listening to your customers, they won’t be your customers for long.

And it’s not just about listening to customers. It’s about applying what customers say, too. Seventy-seven percent of consumers positively view brands that 1) ask for and 2) implement customer feedback.

That’s why we’ve set up repeatable and sustainable ways to listen to customer feedback at Patriot Software and, better yet, base many of our new accounting and payroll feature releases on what our customers want.

Here’s how we do it and how you can, too.

How To Listen To Your Customers

Long before search engines and social media dominated the world, customers were sharing their brand experiences with friends and family. It just looked a little different—and on a lot smaller scale.

But today, consumers have the potential to reach so many more people than just their friends. They can voice their thoughts and concerns on social media, review sites, and even Google.

Put your ear to the ground—your customers are out there, and they’re talking about what they love and hate about your business (or your competitors).

If you don’t already, here are a few ways to listen to your customers:

1. Surveys
2. Usability testing
3. Customer service calls
4. Be the customer
5. Social media and review sites

Fun fact: We use all six of these methods at Patriot Software. Doing so helps us maintain a 4.9 out of 5 stars on various review sites, an NPS (Net Promoter Score) above 81%, and a CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) over 84%. Not to mention, our customers’ feedback helps us make our software the best version it can be for the people who use it day in, day out—our customers! We detailed the features we released based on customer feedback in our 2023 Summer Release Recap.

1. Surveys

“How can we make Patriot Software better for you?”

We ask this question to our customers in our software. It’s a free-form box, so they can put whatever they want, from new features to ideas that speed up their workflow.

Our in-software “survey” is short and straightforward, but it gets the job done. We listen to what our customers are looking for, gather their information, and make changes that all users can benefit from.

One of the best ways to listen to your customers is to conduct surveys about your products or services. Fifty-eight percent of businesses gather feedback from customers through surveys.

You can ask questions like:

• How can we make [company] better for you?
• What challenges are you trying to solve?
• Is our product/service worth the cost?

Happiness Matters!

Don’t forget to monitor your customers’ happiness, too. Customer satisfaction can give you a starting point to collect follow-up information.

You can find your company’s CSAT and NPS by asking the following questions:

• CSAT: How satisfied were you with [company]?
• NPS: On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend [company]?

2. Usability Testing

Another thing we do often is usability testing. Usability testing allows us to track customers’ time to do a task and interview them about their workflow.

We can observe real customers performing tasks through usability testing and see how easy or challenging it is. That way, we can hear—and see—precisely what we need to improve. We also have a Beta program where a small group of customers can volunteer to test new features before we push them live to everyone.

Depending on your industry, your usability testing might look slightly different than a SaaS developer’s. For example, you might have customers come into your brick-and-mortar and try new products in person while you observe their behavior and take notes.

3. Customer Service Calls

Customer calls are yet another easy way to listen to customers and put their feedback to use.

Each time our customers ask for something our software doesn’t have, our customer support team adds a feature request. The feature request aggregates in a report, and our developers then see the features and enhancements our customers want the most. The report helps our developers map out future releases.

When customers call you, don’t half listen to them while purging your inbox. Customer service calls are among the best opportunities to actively listen to your customers and improve your products or services.

4. Be The Customer

Do you wish you had someone using your products or services who could give you feedback at all hours of the day? Someone who was so laser-focused on your product/service, and only your product/service, that their feedback could elevate your company to the next level.

Well, now you can. And that customer is your own business.

Here at Patriot Software, we dogfood our software. Dogfooding is a practice prevalent in the software development industry. It means that a company thoroughly tests its products first on itself, using them as end-users would.

Our internal teams use our software just like our customers do and will provide feedback to our developers. Each of my co-workers logs in to their employee portal, just like our customers’ employees. Our payroll administrator runs payroll using Patriot’s payroll software. And our controller handles our recordkeeping and financial reporting using Patriot’s accounting software.

Not a software company? No problem. Encourage your team to test your products or services and determine if they meet their standards.

5. Social Media And Review Sites

Customers sometimes have a funny way of giving feedback—they give it to you indirectly in public places, like social media and review sites.

Hopefully, you’re active on these public channels to find complaints, address them, and apply their feedback.

And hey, you could turn that 1-star or 2-star review into a 5-star review by listening to the customer, as we did back in March during the whole Silicon Valley Bank debacle. One of our customers posted the following on the review site Trustpilot, updating his review twice because we were actively listening to customers like him:

“UPDATE: This review started as a 2-star review due to the ongoing SVB debacle. Prior to this incident, I have had nothing but stellar service from [Patriot Software].

Patriot Software stepped up their game over the weekend and kept me well informed with emails about updates. Their customer service was polite and professional throughout Friday. My only complaint is that extending their customer service hours through the weekend to deal with the real fears of their customers during the Federal Takeover of SVB, would have put their service above and beyond and would have earned 5-stars from me.

Update #2: The heartfelt apology from CEO Mike Kappel earned my 5th star. Keep up the good work, PS. I won’t doubt you again!!!”

Consider investing in brand monitoring software. Some customers may post about you on their social media channels without tagging you. Brand monitoring software can help you catch these hard-to-find nuggets of feedback and show customers that you’re committed to listening.

Anticipating Customer Needs—Before They Tell You

Surveys, brand monitoring, and usability tests aren’t the only methods to listen to your customers.

You can glean important insights from “throwaway comments” customers make over the phone or when checking out.

What are they saying without explicitly coming out and saying what they want? Is someone always walking around with a bag of chips, asking where the dip is? Anticipate customer needs before they tell you. (Aka, just put the dip by the chips.)

You don’t need a crystal ball to anticipate your customers’ needs. Start by looking at the flow of your physical store or online store. Analyze the details, like your storefront’s lighting. Check out your price tags; are you charging too much?

The bottom line, pretend you’re a customer. Again, does everything meet YOUR standards? If you notice something lending to a disjointed customer experience, note and fix it.

Our 2023 Summer Release Recap not only has a section called “Based on Your Feedback,” but we also have a section called “Improvements You’re Going to Love.” We released these accounting software and payroll features and enhancements by anticipating our customers’ needs. (And hey, it helps that we use our own software so we can catch opportunities early on!)

What To Do With Customer Feedback

The most crucial part of listening to customers is taking action.

Improve your product, service, website, or customer service by gathering and implementing customer feedback. For example, you might gather feedback in a spreadsheet and rank suggestions by difficulty or popularity. Then, you can decide the order to implement them.

Also, don’t forget to share the positive feedback you receive with your team for a huge morale boost.

For those of you who are businesses, the benefits of listening to customers are endless. And if you fail to listen to your customers, they’ll move on to someone who will.