A website feedback tool is sort of like a 24/7 support person that hears both praise and complaints. It offers a way to always stay informed of issues on your website. Without such a tool, you might discover website issues days or even weeks after they first arise.
While collecting feedback is simple, implementing it isn’t.
In this post, we explore what a website feedback tool can do for your SaaS business, the top tools to consider, and how (exactly) to prioritize and utilize that valuable feedback.
What is a website feedback tool?
A website feedback tool is a software application that sits on top of your website or web-based app and encourages website visitors to give feedback. It might only pop up after visitors have been on a page for a certain amount of time, or it might stay present continually on your site.
What sort of feedback you collect with this tool will differ based on your needs and goals. While many ecommerce sites collect sentiment ratings, SaaS companies are more likely to want to collect product and feature ideas.
Types of website and customer feedback tools
There are a lot of different types of software that can help you learn what your website visitors want and put that feedback into action.
Some of these user experience software are complex and are designed to help you a/b test the efficacy of certain website pages, while others are simple widgets that allow you to collect customer input and ideas.
Let’s review all of these different types of tools side by side to help clarify some of the key differences:
Website feedback tool - A website tool helps you collect feedback and sentiment ratings about your website or web-based app.
Website analytics - A website analytics platform collects data about your website visitors, such as their location, company name, device type, and their activity on your website.
Customer feedback software - Customer feedback software may or may not be related to your website, and might have more to do with collecting input on physical or digital products or a mobile app.
Product analytics - With product analytics, you can discover which features are being used, which aren’t, where user activity tends to drop off, and what features are working against you when it comes to churn.
User journey analytics - User journey analytics can provide multichannel insights into how leads are converted into customers and how they become repeat buyers. It can also help you understand the activity of certain accounts, which is really useful for white glove customer success and retention efforts.
Top formats for collecting website feedback
You may have considered sending a survey to collect website feedback, but is that really the most efficient way? Let’s review your format options.
Idea Boards
With an idea board, website users and customers can submit an idea in a format that’s easy for you to manage.
Pros: When someone submits an idea to your board, they can add tags for different topics which will help you sort the feedback. Even better, other customers can upvote the idea to reduce duplication and to help you know what to prioritize.
Cons: You’ll need to direct website visitor traffic to your idea board, but you can do this in a variety of ways.
Widgets
While surveys reigned supreme a decade ago, widgets are now the more standard way to collect website feedback. You can design these widgets to look native to your site.
Pros: The benefit of using a widget to collect website feedback is that you can grab input from your users right away. You don’t have to hope that they will remember it when you ask a question in a survey. If they see an issue or have an idea, they can add it via the widget.
Cons: The cons of this approach is that sometimes, web-based apps can have too many widgets: product announcements, customer support chats, and finally feedback. If not implemented in a seamless way, these widgets can add to the clutter.
Forms
Forms are another way to collect website feedback. You can embed forms on a page on your website called “Tell us what you think” and add the link to this page in your footer and other key places on your site.
Pros: Depending on where and how you use the form, your feedback form could also offer an instant way for website visitors to give their two cents right when they come up with a critique or idea. Forms also separate and segment data with feedback button. For example, you might have one field for positive feedback and one for negative feedback. This can make it easier to implement the feedback.
Cons: The downside with forms is that they might be hard to find, even if you link to them from several places on your website. Typically, you would need to notify or request customers to fill out your form, which doesn’t make them much better than a survey.
Surveys
Surveys are tried-and-true for customer research and market research, but they aren’t the most effective way to collect website feedback.
Pros: A survey can be a great way to collect information for a specific goal. For example, let’s say you’re considering expanding your feature set towards the needs of a specific market, or you want to collect as much information as possible about the utility of something you just launched.
Cons: The downside with a survey is that it isn’t timely. You send it on your terms, and customers can’t just fill it out right when they have a thought to share. Surveys also have a negative connotation. Even if you make yours as short as possible, customers might not even try to fill it out for fear it will eat into their time.
How to act on customer feedback
Collecting feedback is relatively simple, but how do you implement it?
Prioritizing website feedback
What are your goals for collecting feedback? If it’s something highly specific, you should use a survey to get the information from customers and users. Most likely, you want to collect feedback around the clock so that no issue ever goes unanswered.
Here are the top things to hunt for:
- Errors, bugs, and breaks
- Confusion, frustration, and UX concerns
- Ways to make a current feature better
- Ideas for new features
- Comparisons to what competitors offer
Of course, your customers might come at you with other types of feedback, but 99% of the valuable input will be related to one of those five things.
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