Having a lifeline with your customers is vital in order to maintain a good relationship with them. Many times, we will hear from customers when something is blatantly wrong, but in many cases, marginally dissatisfied customers do not speak up; they instead vow never to give you return business and may spread their dissatisfaction via word of mouth. When you open multiple avenues for dialog and proactively encourage individuals to comment, you can help reduce the rate of this occurring. Below are five great ways in which you can encourage your customers to leave feedback, helping you manage your business more effectively.

Offer Contact Forms

Whenever your customers place an order, do they have a way to leave you feedback anonymously after the transaction has been completed? By implementing a program that can handle these submissions (a ticket management program is the best option for pinging servers with these comments when there is a high amount of traffic), you can provide a personalized approach to each customer’s comments and concerns.

Provide Forums for Discussion

While some businesses are weary to provide a public outlet for consumers to discuss their products’ disadvantages, having a place where problems can be discussed shows customers that you do in fact care and are taking proactive steps to rectify any issues they may have. By being attentive, polite and giving leeway when there is the option of doing so, many irate customers can be flipped into return business – if the problems are handled in the right way.

Send Out Surveys

Whenever a customer buys a product from you, do you provide them with a survey or questionnaire that asks them to report their feelings on the product and overall transaction? If not, you are missing out on valuable feedback. Whether it is in paper form in a brick-and-mortar institution or online and through email, always be sure to solicit responses from every single customer. By having the largest pool of feedback possible, you will be sure to get an accurate representation of how your customer base feels.

Setup Live Chat

If you are constantly involved with your business throughout the day, then setting up a live chat option is yet another way you can provide an outlet for consumers to inquire, complain or just get a feel for the product before they make a commitment. Rather than pinging servers on your own domain with added demand, you also have the option to acquire live chat services for a relatively inexpensive rate from a slew of international companies that provide the service – leaving you free to do other things.

Utilize Social Networks

Finally, the use of social media to handle comments is a great way to gain customer feedback and will be used by customers if promoted. Since many users are already on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms, it is very simple to convince them to communicate with you via the page in question. In many ways, this can be a two-fold benefit: some will end up liking your page as they come to leave comments, which will result in them receiving future updates from you in their status feeds.