CRO and Customer Feedback

CRO and customer feedback are closely aligned, but are you ready to ask and listen?

Whenever I’m providing my CRO service to a client, it can come as a surprise when I explain how closely aligned CRO and customer feedback are. However, the level of surprise is almost always eclipsed when they read what customers say.

Conversion rate optimisation is often perceived as being limited to examining website design and data. The reality is that some of the most startling and useful feedback can come directly from customers. Even more valuable are website visitors that haven’t become customers.

Customer feedback is important to CRO

Asking for customer feedback is an essential part of most CRO projects. When you suggest ways of asking for non-customer feedback, focusing on website visitors that don’t convert, businesses are usually open to the idea. How business owners and managers react to reading feedback from customers and visitors is where things get interesting.

Direct feedback is very different to digital data investigation. Your data speaks to you, but not in the way a customer or other person can. For a start, people can be brutal. If you hone in on people you know, or attempt to lead people to a preferred answer, you’re wasting your time.

Equally, you shouldn’t dismiss genuine customer feedback when it is positive and think that it doesn’t count because they’re already a customer – it is potentially gold dust.

Why customer feedback matters

Customers and visitors that haven’t converted give valuable feedback of different types. It could be broadly summarised as shown below:

Existing customers

• They tell you what you do well
• You’ll find out why they came to you in the first instance
• Why they bought from you is critical
• Feedback on what you could do better is valuable
• You can discover if they know about other products or offers

Visitors that aren’t customers

• They’ll tell you why they haven’t bought from you
• They’re usually more direct in their feedback
• They give you ways to improve through their criticism
• You might have an opportunity to convert them into a customer
• You’ll sometimes find out more about what visitors want to buy

How to gather customer feedback for CRO

Obtaining feedback from your existing customers doesn’t need to be difficult. You can use their contact information (GDPR permitting) to get in touch with them and ask for feedback.

Getting feedback from non-customers is where many businesses stumble. However, it isn’t too much of a challenge for most ecommerce platforms to offer a variety of ways to connect with visitors, including:

• Abandoned cart emails
• Survey pop-ups
• Newsletter subscriptions

I want to focus on the point at which you’ve received the feedback, whether from a customer or visitor.

Business reaction to customer feedback

Over the years, I’ve worked with a variety of personalities when it comes to business owners or their senior management.

The passionate founder reaction

Companies that have been founded by the person I’m dealing with tend to present more of a challenge when it comes to delivering feedback from customers or visitors. If you’ve put blood, sweat and tears into building a brand, it isn’t easy to hear or read someone tearing it to pieces – and that can happen.

The demoralised or threatened manager reaction

Similarly, if you’re a Marketing Director or someone directly connected to the website, and your effort appears to be in vain because of the feedback you receive, it can be demoralising.

Take website feedback seriously

None of that really matters. What matters is how seriously you take the feedback and what you do with it.

I like to provide brief case studies whenever I can, removing brand identities for privacy and confidentiality purposes, and I think you’ll find these interesting and amusing in equal measure!

Website feedback case studies

The general consensus v company founders

The website brand founders in this case were a couple that had formed and built a company over 20 years. It had been successful with physical retail stores and had an online presence for approximately 5-6 years.

A sector undergoing change

The success of the website was waning. Visitor numbers had been falling but their conversion rate had seen a particularly alarming drop. The sector they occupied was incredibly competitive with new players entering and disrupting what had been a relatively settled market for a long time.

An audience keen to give feedback

Several methods were used to ask visitors to offer their feedback on the site. There was no monetary incentive to do so, no discounts offered, but the volume of feedback was one of the highest I’ve ever seen.

I think it is important to mention that you’ve got to get sufficient feedback to even consider action. Reacting to a handful of responses from the general public isn’t a wise thing to do. There could be some credibility for considering what they say if every customer voices the same feedback, but small samples of feedback need treating carefully.

Unprecedented agreement

Over 80% of the feedback voiced 2 major criticisms:

• Product prices were uncompetitive
• The website made it difficult to configure products

Changing USP’s and competitors

The founders knew that their pricing wasn’t the cheapest on the market. It was never intended to be. They were focused on higher levels of customer service and had previously been able to supply products to customers more quickly than competitors.

Unfortunately, competitors could now match them on the product lead-time and speed of delivery.

To compound matters, their customer service response times had worsened, and they’d received comments outside of the survey that cemented that. Suddenly, their USP’s were being compromised.

Defensive owners

The immediate reaction of the company founders was “They’re not our type of customers, they’re price driven, we don’t want them.“

Ultimately, it was the founders prerogative to have that opinion and they may well have been correct, but it didn’t change how cataclysmic the change in conversion rate had been. It could point to a misdirected marketing campaign bringing the wrong type of audience to their site, or was it a change in target audience behaviour and priorities?

The feedback related to the product configuration on the website was deafening. Apart from over 80% of people mentioning it, the level of criticism was remarkable. What’s more, it was in complete agreement with another phase of the CRO service – where I’d assessed visitor behaviour on the product pages and, through use of the site, already identified the product configurator was a disaster.

At the point that the visitor feedback was shown to the company founders, they hadn’t read my report on the website. This was unusual, as all the elements that form the overall CRO report would typically be collated so that the report of recommendations could be produced.

However, the company founders had asked that visitor feedback was made available to them as soon as it was received. When you work as a CRO consultant, you’ve got to respect the wishes of your clients even if you’ve advised them it is best not to see feedback in isolation.

A further discussion took place with the founders. It was possibly the most defensive reaction to criticism from the general public that I had ever seen. I then told them what I thought of the product configurator. The room fell into total silence.

Revealing the uncomfortable truth

Over the years, the product configurator options had been extended. Time and time again, they’d offered greater flexibility in terms of what the customer could specify. This had been driven by one of the founders.

It was no coincidence that this founder had far more time on their hands than the other. Outside of the meeting, unbeknown to the founders, a senior member of staff had passed a comment to me – “We all know what the problem is, but they can’t stop themselves messing something up that was working perfectly.“

I’d dismiss that type of comment nine out of ten times, but it was valid. The drop in conversion rate could be traced back to a specific date – and that was a date on which the founder in question had added 2 additional elements to the product configurator. They’d done this via their third-party web development company that had to do anything technical on the site. The day after the change had gone live on the site – conversion rates halved.

Over the following months, the conversion rate continued to drop. In response to this, the company had added another element to the product configurator. They had compounded the very issue that was the problem.

I’ve saved the best for last. The reason their customer service response times had worsened was because they’d been inundated with questions from website visitors about how to use the product configurator, or from people saying it didn’t work properly on their device. None of this feedback, or very little of it, had ever been passed back to the founders.

Staff won’t always tell you what you don’t want to hear

It was obvious why staff hadn’t told the founders, it was the very thing I was facing when delivering the feedback and my thoughts – they knew they’d become very defensive and not want to believe it. They would say it was wrong and there was nothing at fault with the website.

Fortunately, the silence was broken. The founder responsible for the website changes reacted by saying “Tell us what to do, I’ve ******* up haven’t I?”.

The other founder began laughing and said “They can’t help themselves, they do it for the right reasons but get carried away.”

Honesty is the best policy – and customers will give it

Sometimes, all you need is honest and direct feedback delivered in the right way. I’m not convinced that my recommendations about the website product configurator would have been listened to in full had it not been for the feedback directly from visitors. The general public cemented what was, in isolation, a professional opinion.

That type of message is very, very difficult for decision makers to ignore, no matter how passionate or defensive they are about their brand and what they’ve done.

Reacting swiftly to customer feedback

CRO recommendations and actions are deployed in a phased way by most organisations. You’ve got to be able to measure the actions you take. On this occasion, a decision was taken immediately – they reversed the changes to the website product configurator, rolling it back to the state it had been in on the day before the conversion rate dropped.

The impact of responding to customer website feedback

Two days later, the conversion rate had soared back up to within 0.2% of where it had been. They still had the pricing feedback to deal with, and there was a wealth of other recommendations, but they’d restored the core of their concern.

That is the value of direct customer feedback, even in the face of defensive ownership or management.

I think it is important to say that most business owners take feedback onboard and they should be lauded for asking for it in the first instance. Recognising that you need to do something about a falling conversion rate is half the battle won.

The unknown and destructive review

Feedback can also deliver insights that business owners react furiously to.

In one CRO project I worked on, a number of visitors to a website commented that they’d gone to read reviews of a product after visiting the client website.

In doing so, they’d found a YouTube review at the top of Google search. The review destroyed the product. What made it worse was that it was from a relatively well respected person in the sector.

Working for the competition

The Managing Director of the client company knew the reviewer, personally, and said he’d “Jumped into bed with the competition”. He said he knew he was working for a competitor company, but they’d been wholly unaware of the product review.

Immediate investigation

They didn’t even know where he’d obtained the product from, as there was no trace of an order from him and they’d not supplied the product for review. Further investigation (all of this took place in space of approximately 2 hours!) revealed that the product had been purchased by a competitor company employee.

Suddenly, you’re embroiled in the underhand antics that have become all too common in the world of internet reviews today.

Resolved as a direct result of website visitor feedback

Subsequently, discussions and ‘actions‘ took place between the client company and the reviewer, and indeed the competitor company. The review disappeared. As soon as it was removed, conversion rates for the product improved.

Without the feedback from website visitors, they might never have known about it.

The problematic courier feedback

Customers can be just as useful in their feedback as visitors. It can be surprising to hear what they think about your service or products, but also the way you deliver them.

In 2018, one of my clients received feedback from customers at the very outset of a CRO project. It became apparent that they weren’t happy with a new courier the client was using.

More complaints that management were unaware of

Several of the customers said they’d not be placing further orders unless the client company went back to using their former courier. Ironically, there had been a rise in delivery complaints but this hadn’t been communicated to senior management.

Abandoned carts supported the feedback

The dissatisfaction was supported by visitors (not customers) that said they’d not use the company because of the courier they used. Abandoned Cart emails revealed that it was the biggest cause of abandonment.

Conversion rate increased

This was another example of where action can be swift. The move to the new courier had been recent and part of a trial to save costs. Unfortunately, whilst costs had been saved, it had been a factor in reducing the conversion rate. Changing back to the previous courier saw the rate increase again.

It was made even better by an email to all customers, and the visitors that had completed the survey and provided their email address, advising them of the change and that the company appreciated the feedback. The email contained a thank you discount that converted to orders from 6% of all the recipients! That is a quite remarkable return from an email of that nature.

The website of doom

One CRO project I’ll never forget resulted in some of the most scathing customer and visitor feedback. Before the feedback was received I would have bet most of my possessions on what would be said about the website – and I was proven correct.

Poor user experience and interface

The site had been developed in two stages, during which there had been a switch of web design agency. The company had then decided to taken design and development of the site in-house.

The most senior marketing person in the business had then done what I can best describe as saturated pages with promotional messages, banners, pop-ups, and all manner of gimmicks. When I first tried browsing the site, before I was even appointed to provide the CRO service, I struggled to get to the bottom of the homepage.

Customers can be entertaining with their feedback

Customers and visitors rounded on the company with such vitriol it was both shocking and entertaining. Some of their descriptions of the website were creative to say the least. It won’t surprise you to know that the repeat customer rate on the site was rock bottom. I don’t think anyone wanted to subject themselves to the experience again.

Two of the comments I shall never forget were:

“You make my local fish and chip shop website look good”

“Impossible to use on my phone, you are 80 miles from me and I could walk to you and buy over the counter faster.”

Management were distant from the website

Understandably, the senior management of the company were far from impressed. They told me they’d not visited the website in a long time, and that’s a good example of why you should try to do so when you’re running an online operation. Once they did look at it, they understood the customer point of view.

Swift action and CRO recommendations implemented

Management were fast to address the issue by appointing a very reputable web development company that specialised in the platform it used. I worked with them on all the other areas of CRO I’d identified and the new site performed far better than the original ever had.

A changed view on ecommerce website budgets

Interestingly, the company had always taken a ‘tight’ view of expenditure on the website. That is one of the reasons they’d taken full control in-house and perhaps some excuse for the marketing person getting overly and directly involved.

Releasing the budget belt to give them a site that the brand merited paid dividends. I spoke to the Managing Director approximately 12 months after the new site launched and he was delighted with their online performance.

Customer feedback and unfiltered opinion is vital to the CRO process

Occasionally, when customers deliver unfiltered and damning opinion, businesses have no choice but to react. The CRO recommendations would have brought about change anyway, and indeed the customer feedback was part of that, but it is another example of where management can be distant from their online operations until things begin to bite.

The case of the missing product

As a final example of where both the customer and unconverted visitor can show their value, I was once on a video call sharing my screen when I witnessed a Sales Director jaw almost hit the desk and a Marketing Director go straight for the telephone on the desk to make an internal call.

You can’t sell a product customers can’t find

They were reacting to me sharing feedback in which customers and visitors alike passed comment on two products. Several customers commented on their wish for the company to sell a particular product. Visitors, when asked about why they’d not made a purchase, replied in even greater numbers – they were looking for the same product too.

Directors couldn’t find the product either – feedback confirmed

The reaction of the directors was because they knew that the company sold the product. The Marketing Director rang a member of staff whilst the Sales Director picked up his iPhone and went to find the product on the website.

He couldn’t find the product. The response the Marketing Director received was that it was on the website.

The product isn’t all that was missing

A few moments passed before the Sales Director said “Where’s the search bar gone?”. The Marketing Director looked similarly baffled (now also browsing on her mobile phone).

Category error and development mistakes

I’ll cut to the chase. The product was in the wrong category on the website. It had been put in an obscure and little used category in error.

The lack of visibility had been made worse by their Head of Digital deciding to remove the search bar during a phase of testing and forgetting to put it back.

There were a few expletives from both directors when the issue became apparent and I won’t ever forget the Sales Director saying “At least we now know why we never sold many of those online!”.

While this might seem like an incidental by-product of requesting customer feedback in the CRO process, it is actually far more important than it appears.

Far reaching consequences to conversion rates

Nobody would suggest that a single product might be limiting the conversion rate of a website to the point that a CRO process is deemed necessary.

However, the search bar is an altogether different proposition. Few senior staff that I speak to seem to appreciate how fundamental it is to ecommerce sites today.

Almost 70% of site visitors will go directly to the search bar when they land on a site. The days of browsing categories or scrolling to find a product are long gone. When consumers know what they want, the search bar is what they go looking for.

Again, the CRO process had identified the lack of it anyway, but it brings about the prospect of periodical surveys to test websites and customer or visitor satisfaction. Had the company used those, the lack of it would probably have been spotted far sooner – courtesy of feedback.

CRO brought about widescale change in attitudes and procedures

Further demonstration of the impact of CRO and processes in general is seen when you consider the wide-reaching consequences of the above. Not only did it see immediate remedial action, it resulted in long term procedural changes. These included:

• Extended checks performed when new products were added
• Development/testing changes in procedure
• Periodical customer surveys
• Stronger questioning of poor sales performance online
• Monthly website change reports

The introduction of all 5 of the above offered protection against conversion rate decreases, and they were all reasonably easy to implement.

They’re typical examples of how CRO extends well beyond what most people would expect.

Conversion rate improvement relies on feedback

Sometimes, your customer is your best friend and your visitor isn’t far behind them. You just have to be prepared to ask questions and listen to them.

If conversion rates drop, your website visitors are the people that can tell you, often bluntly, why they’re not buying. You can assess all aspects of your website, from the user interface and user experience to the aesthetics, content, CTA’s and everything else, and indeed you should, but it has be combined with real-world feedback from people who aren’t too close to your business.

Improving feedback response rates

The lack of responses you obtain when requesting feedback can be a challenge. We’ve all received emails or had website pop-ups asking us if we can spare 5 minutes to give our views, but the likelihood is that you ignored most of them.

Incentives are essential in my opinion. It has been shown that offering even a £50 voucher for goods from your site, via entry into a prize draw for every feedback form submitted, can increase responses ten-fold.

I’ve seen clients react with very little enthusiasm for offering any kind of incentive for feedback, but that usually changes when you consider the impact of even a fractional percentage increase in conversion rate. The greater the incentive, the more responses you’ll receive.

It has also been demonstrated that, for very attractive prize draws, feedback is likely to be more detailed. When you’re offering someone a prize they really value, they’ll put more time and effort into the feedback they provide.

Act and your conversion rates can improve

As long as you are prepared to listen to feedback, and put faith in any consensus that shines through it, you’ll almost certainly benefit from it.

Customer feedback can increase conversion rates regardless of whether what the visitor says is positive or critical of your business.

Ask for it and act on it.

Reader feedback

Isn’t it somewhat ironic that I end a blog focused on feedback by asking for feedback? I value what readers think of the content I publish.

If you’ve any thoughts on my views, anything written in this blog, or CRO and customer feedback in general, please let me know. I read all comments and will endeavour to reply to them where appropriate.