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We all know that client feedback for photographers is hyper important. But, what is less clear is knowing how to effectively get feedback from clients.
Thankfully, photography business feedback can be collected in a variety of ways, and many of these ways require little to no time on your part. Of course, there will be some testing involved, but once you establish a routine, getting feedback will come quite naturally.
Since different feedback channels work for different photography businesses, I’m going to take you through four different steps that I took to learn how to get feedback from clients. You can implement all of them, or you can implement none of them, but they will at least give you a great starting point.
The importance of customer feedback cannot be overstated, so what are you waiting for?
Use Surveys
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This is definitely one of the more basic ways to learn how to get feedback from clients, but just because it is rudimentary doesn’t mean it is any less effective.
Surveys are wonderful for photography businesses because they are relatively simple to create. They won’t take very much time or money from you. Plus, there are already tons of options for questions that you can choose from online. All you need to do is find ones that you would like the answers to.
There are a few different options for surveys. For instance you can use a more traditional survey, which is multiple choice, or you can choose a slider survey which will inform you more about distinct problems your company is facing. Then, of course, you can provide open-ended questions which allow your clients to write their own answers.
Each of these surveys have pros and cons. For example, while an open-ended survey will get you the most thorough feedback, less people will be inclined to participate in them since it is more work on their end.
Get some tips on making a better client survey in the video above by Campaign Creators.
No matter which type of survey you choose, there are some basic rules you need to follow.
The first is to make sure that your rating scales are all consistent. So, if you have a question that asks how satisfied a client was with their services and their options to choose from are, “very,” “somewhat,” or “not at all.” Then use those three options with all of your questions. It helps to keep your survey from being confusing.
You also don’t want to use leading questions. These are questions that point a user in a specific direction and will make it look like you don’t actually want the feedback that you’re trying to collect.
One of the most important parts about learning how to get feedback from clients is learning how to actually want honest feedback in the first place.
Try Usability Testing
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While learning how to get feedback from clients, you’re going to need to learn how to create a usability test. This definitely takes more knowledge and planning than a customer survey, but it can provide you with some of the best quality feedback. With customer feedback, you reap the benefits you sow.
A usability test lets you know whether a specific feature on your website works well or whether it needs to be recreated. But, even if you don’t get a lot of business from your website, you can still use a usability test because you can test whether or not a new deal you’re offering to your clients is working for them.
Usability tests also work well in circumstances where it can be difficult to learn how to get feedback from clients in person. For instance, sometimes a client just really doesn’t feel comfortable talking to you about their issues and this is where a usability test comes into play.
Learn More:
- 4 Ways to Get Photography Clients to Come Back Over and Over
- How to Get More Reviews for Your Photography Business
Social Media
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Social media is one of the best, free tools for you while you’re learning how to get feedback from clients because you’re likely already using it.
If you are using social media, like Instagram, then you’ve likely seen polls put out by other businesses. For example, Instagram polls on Instagram stories allows you to ask easy yes/no questions to your clients.
Not only is social media one of the cheapest ways to learn how to get feedback from clients, but it’s also one of the cleanest ways. Your clients are already used to getting and answering polls from businesses on social media. It takes them absolutely no time and they will likely want to participate in them in order to figure out if their opinion matches the opinion of the other people who also took the poll.
Interview Customers
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Learning how to get feedback from clients is pretty simple if you take the old-fashioned route and just talk to them.
While not every client will enjoy giving feedback this way, many do. You won’t even need to wonder how to get feedback from clients sometimes because they are so willing to tell you what they did and did not enjoy about their experience.
Of course, if you’re a shy business owner, then interviewing your customers can feel overwhelming. This is especially true if your business is brand new and you truly aren’t sure whether you’re doing a good job or not. That’s when Podium comes in handy.
Podium is an all-in-one messaging platform that allows you to read all of your business communications from one place so you don’t have to jump between apps all day.
But, Podium also offers a feedback option. Podium feedback lets you text your clients from the Podium app at any time during your process to ask how a client is enjoying their experience with your business.
You can automate this feedback loop, which means you don’t actually have to put any time or effort into learning how to get feedback from customers, and you’ll still get great results.
Plus, since clients can just answer the questions via text, you won’t run into any issues with a client refusing to respond to a survey via email. This is because everybody reads their text messages.
While the Podium app isn’t free, they are offering a free demo that you can try to figure out whether it will work for your business.