When it comes to improving your business, few things are as helpful as customer feedback.
Customer feedback is a direct line to your customers’ wants, needs, and issues, all of which can improve your marketing and service dramatically.
Collecting that feedback, however, isn’t always so easy.
In this post, we’ll cover the basics of website feedback and share some of our favourite website feedback tools.
Let’s get started!
Website feedback and why it matters
Website feedback is as simple as it sounds: It’s any comment from your users and customers about your website and their experience with it:
- Did it load too slowly?
- Did they have a hard time finding what they were looking for?
- Were they happy with the customer service?
By taking these comments into a digital suggestion box, you can use them to pinpoint areas of improvement in your website and business.
If you think you can get by without these comments, then you’re in for a rough surprise. 57% of internet users won’t recommend a website that is poorly optimised for mobile. That’s more than half of your word-of-mouth marketing out the window. You should regularly be checking in with your users to see what kind of impression you’re leaving them with.
What are website feedback tools?
But how do you collect this feedback? In an in-person shop, you’d probably gather feedback by talking to customers and seeing what kinds of comments employees were hearing. On the internet, however, this isn’t so easy.
To help, there are website feedback tools. These are tools that you can install on your website to enable customers to leave you a comment. Some of these look like simple chat windows while others have a fully-fledged interface, complete with screen capture and behaviour analytics.
Because there is such a wide breadth of these tools available, it’s important that you find the one that’s right for your business. Maybe you need something simple, robust, or simply as cost-effective as possible.
The 5 best website feedback tools
To help you find that perfect tool, here are some of our top picks for website feedback tools. These will vary in feature as well as form, so you can find one that not only suits your website, but also the users using your website.
1. UserReport
First up is UserReport, a great middle-of-the-road option for most users. It comes with two simple widgets: A survey widget and a feedback widget.
The survey widget allows you to ask open-ended questions of your users. For instance, you might ask, “What did you like about my website?”
The feedback widget, on the other hand, works more like a poll. You present a list of points to your users (“I want a mobile app”, “Needs more colour”, etc.) and give them a chance to thumbs-up any that they agree with.
When combined, you can use these two UserReport features to gauge your users’ feelings and make decisions about which areas of your website to invest in. Used by companies like TripAdvisor and Bauer, this is a simple solution for most websites.
2. Usersnap
On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Usersnap. Usersnap is a more feature-rich, robust tool used by companies like Microsoft, Cisco, and Lyft. It’s more akin to a user feedback platform, which makes it ideal for tech companies as well as larger enterprises.
Usersnap’s main features revolve around seamless customer-facing tools. These fit into any website’s design and are highly customisable, down to what they look like and when your users see them.
Behind that customer-facing front end is a rich back end of analytics. You get deep insights into how customers navigate your website, what their screen looks like when they decide to leave feedback, and much more. Usersnap is likely overkill for most users but is excellent for those who need to get the most out of their feedback.
3. IdeaScale
IdeaScale is a very different feedback tool for businesses looking for** internal feedback rather than external feedback**. Used by groups like NASA and McDonalds, IdeaScale allows you to pose challenges to a specified community and then to collect ideas, feedback, and insights from that community.
The idea behind this tool is to uncover latent ideas from every level of your company. Users can:
- Contribute their ideas
- Vote on previously contributed ideas
- Offer up advice
It’s a great way to get feedback from non-consumer sources.
4. Olark
Olark is a website feedback tool built around real-time insights. It’s constantly pulling data from your users as they report their comments so that you and your team can respond as appropriately as possible.
Alongside these real-time insights are features like instant chat, emailing, analytics, and a simple to use interface. It’s also affordable, making it a great option for smaller businesses and websites.
5. Saber Feedback
For businesses that want the best experience overall, there’s Saber Feedback.
Saber Feedback offers the core features businesses are looking for in a professional, clean interface. This includes:
- Ready-made fields and popups
- Advanced form logic
- Real-time previews
In addition, this feedback tool offers more in-depth features for users who want to get the most out of the platform. Screen capture is included, as are deep customisation tools.
You can translate the feedback form, decide when and where your feedback widgets appear, and access all of your responses and metrics from a built-in dashboard.
Saber Feedback also comes with features that businesses expect. For instance, you can integrate Saber with apps like Slack, Jira and Zapier. This makes it an all-in-one solution for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Start collecting feedback on your website today
Find a tool that’s right for you? We hope there was at least one tool in this list that was well-suited to your needs. If you’re interested in Saber Feedback and want to see if it’s right for your business, reach out to our team today.