Customer Feedback: Why It’s Important and The Best Online Tools To Gather It

• Gathering customer feedback has never been more important, and thankfully, more easy.
• Online tools allow businesses and dev/tech teams to gather both qualitative and quantitative data bout their consumers thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
• We’ll discuss seven different customer feedback tools, ranging in price from free to $460+ per month, helping you determine exactly what your business needs.

Gathering customer feedback was once a drawn out, subjective and highly inaccurate business. Prior to the internet, companies struggled to improve their services and increase customer satisfaction, without access to reliable information about their customer’s behavior and overall experience with their brand.

Fortunately, there are now dozens of highly customizable and trustworthy tools that will automatically gather this information for you. In this article, we’ll explore nine of the best tools currently on offer.

Why gather customer feedback?

Gathering varied and accurate customer feedback is essential for every business, without exception. The most successful companies are those who understand their customer base and implement improvements based on real feedback. If a customer doesn’t like one aspect of your service or is disappointed with a product, you need to understand why. Simply knowing that dissatisfaction has occurred is not enough, as it will not help you to avoid similar mistakes in future.

Keep in mind too that the very act of asking your customers for feedback increases customer satisfaction, even if the feedback you receive is not positive. When customers are given the chance to speak up about what they do and don’t like, they are made to feel valued and even more invested in your brand.

Shutterstock

We’ve put together a list of our favorite feedback-gathering tools, to help you find the right fit for your business and customer base.

Typeform

Typeform is one of the best feedback-gathering tools we’ve encountered, primarily for its ability to encourage customers to enter detailed responses. After all, even the most sophisticated feedback tools are useless if your customers neglect to fill them in. This tool comes with a variety of attractive customizable templates to entice users and includes tips to help you ask the right questions. Typeform is compatible with all platforms.

They offer a free version, and three price plans to choose from. These are:

• Basic: $29 per month
• Plus: $56 per month
• Business: $90 per month

Shutterstock

Userbrain

Userbrain is designed to gather information about test-customer behaviors, rather than qualitative feedback. While testers are using your website or digital product, this clever tool automatically records their movements to help identify potential issues and areas for improvement. Userbrain is a high-profile UX tool used by some well-known brands, including Virgin, Spotify, and Red Bull. It’s is available on all platforms, though their mobile version is less user-friendly.

Pricing for this tool is based on the number of test users. For example:

• 3 Test Users: $69 per month
• 10 Test Users: $230 per month
• 30 Test Users: $90 per month
• $35 per tester, pay-as-you-go

Screenshot: Userbrain

Hotjar

Hotjar uses heat map-style visuals to illustrate customer behavior. Built for product designers, UX designers and marketing professionals, this tool shows you where your visitors spend time, how they scroll, and which pathways they follow while navigating a website or app. It also uses cool-toned visuals to indicate problem areas, where customers are taking too much time to complete a task or fill something in. Like the other tools on this list, Hotjar includes a poll feature for customers to provide qualitative feedback.

Hotjar offers a free version, plus three paid versions. Their pricing is as follows:

• Plus: $46 per month
• Business: $117 per month
• Scale: $460 per month

Screenshot: Hotjar

Sprinklr

Sprinklr is a qualitative feedback-gathering tool. It helps you develop an online customer community which will benefit both your business and your customer base. Users gain fast, relevant answers to support questions and the opportunity to provide feedback. Customer-generated content encourages greater engagement, and the tool itself “rewards” community members for participation.

One downside to Sprinklr is that they do not advertise pricing on their website. Instead, they encourage potential customers to contact their team for a specialized quote.

Shutterstock

UserReport

This intuitive tool is deployed as an integrated part of an app or website. UserReport’s survey widget provides easy-to-understand data demonstrating to what extent your customers or visitors like and engage with your product. The feedback widget allows you to act on this information, to quickly fix bugs, and improve problem areas. It also sorts user feedback by demographic.

UserReport has a free version, and a free trial option on their paid service. However, they do not advertise prices on their website. Like Sprinklr, they encourage interested businesses to contact their customer support.

Screenshot: UserReport

Loop

Loop is a sophisticated habit-tracking tool that allows you to both measure and improve customer satisfaction. It includes an integrated feedback forum which notifies you when customers leave or reply to comments. One great feature of this tool is that customers can rate the validity of other feedback comments, making it easy to weed out common sticking points and problems.

Loop offers three price plans, which are as follows:

• Starter: $0 per month
• Premium: $39 per month
• Enterprise: Customizable pricing

Screenshot: Loop

Revoo

This clever feedback tool allows you to share approved customer reviews with new visitors to your website. These reviews can only be made by people who have used your product or made a purchase, which makes Revoo a great tool for avoiding fake feedback. The feedback collection tool also asks customers about their overall experience with your website and company, making it easy to improve your service.

Revoo’s service is highly customizable, so their pricing depends on the amount and quality of data collected. They encourage potential customers to contact them directly for a personalized quote.

Screenshot: Revoo

Canny

Canny provides a simple and intuitive way to gather, organize and act on customer feedback. Some users report that the app may not be suitable for gathering information on multiple products and services, however, it works well for businesses with simple product offerings and smaller companies. What’s more, Canny makes it easy to act on customer feedback and thus quickly improve your service and offerings.

Canny offer a 14-day free trial and several price packages, which are:

• Starter: $50 per month
• Growth: $200 per month
• Custom: Contact them for a quote

Screenshot: Canny

Feedbackify

Feedbackify is well-known feedback gathering tool, praised for its flexibility and ease of use. The tool includes a “drag and drop” editing function, which lets users create and customize their own feedback forms. In this respect, it’s perfect for finding out what really matters to your customers. Feedbackify takes feedback in the form of comments, ratings, and suggestions. Businesses can view feedback in real-time, or filter based on topic.

Pricing starts at $19 per month.

Screenshot: Feedbackify

Finally…

Always check what existing users have said about a customer feedback tool before making your final decision. Every company’s needs are different, so what is right for someone else may be completely inappropriate for your customer base or product.