Tutorial: How to Get Good Feedback from Website Users

All too often, we think we know what our users want. But the only way of truly knowing is by listening to them directly. You may not think it’s representative of your primary target audience, but it is still valuable nonetheless.

In the previous post we talked about what users can do to make their feedback more useful to website administrators. But users shouldn’t have to carry this burden alone. Here are a few pointers on how web administrators can get more helpful feedback:

[1] First, if you aren’t actually going to read, respond to or use feedback, don’t ask for it. For instance, disable commenting on blog posts that are meant to be rhetorical news items.

[2] In fact, if you can help it, don’t ask for feedback at all. If you need information in order to design a new service, product, or feature, that’s one thing. But in general, nothing is more annoying than being asked to provide feedback through a random phone call, a 5-page survey sent to your email, or a pop-up that displays before you’ve even used the website at all.

[3] Don’t hide your feedback mechanism. Feedback directly from users is extremely valuable, no matter how much you make dislike what they say. In fact, if you have a tendency to dislike what you hear, you probably need to hear it even more.

[4] Guide users. Offer a way to select common feedback types such as bug reports or feature suggestions. Then provide forms with only the most relevant fields for that type of feedback. For bug reports, solicit information that will help you replicate the problem. For feature suggestions, allow selection from popular ideas, so users will know if their idea is original.

[5] Don’t make providing feedback a difficult or tedious process. Don’t force people to create an account or sign up for something. Don’t require that users provide product key or customer numbers that they probably don’t even know. Feedback forms need to be welcome, reassuring, and easy to use.

[6] In line with #5, don’t ask for the same information multiple times. Provide your customer service agents with all data entered by this user up to thier point of contact. The user won’t even remember what their feedback is anymore, if they have to tell you their phone number 4 different times.

[7] Respond to feedback as soon as possible. Even if that means using a form letter or some kind of confirmation email, it’s better than nothing. If you do use an automated response immediately, follow it up as quickly as possible with a direct response (from a human being).

[8] Use feedback services like UserVoice or Get Satisfaction. These services are a quick way to add a useful, structured feedback mechanism to your website.

Overall, the most irksome thing for users is spending a lot of time on feedback only to find that it’s been completely ignored.

As a website user, is there anything else you wish administrators were doing differently with regard to soliciting your feedback? What experiences have you had when trying to provide feedback, whether positive or negative?