According to the e-commerce blog Shift4Shop, customer reviews drive product sales. In fact, Shift4Shop says the relationship is a direct one: more reviews lead to more purchases. With every increase in reviews, they claim, you can expect increases in sales as listed below.

1 review 10% increase in sales

50 reviews 30%

100 reviews 37%

150 reviews 41%

200 reviews 44%

Customer and client reviews are a special kind of feedback data because they help you regardless of whether the feedback is positive or negative.

No matter if you run a restaurant, shoe store, or massage therapy practice, positive feedback is what you want the most, obviously. All organizations want their clients, customers, and associates to say nice things about them. Customers offering public praise for your service or product will lead potential customers to believe the claims you make and see the value in what you offer.

But negative feedback has its role to play, too. Aside from furnishing a chance to improve your product or service, it also allows you the chance to connect with your clients in a very meaningful way. First, simply acknowledging that a customer had a negative experience with your product or service can make that customer more likely to give you a second chance. Secondly, rectifying the negative situation can transform a vocal critic into an ardently loyal supporter.

So, how can you be most effective at collecting feedback about your services, products, and organization? Here is a list of three tips.

1. Be direct and brief.

According to a recent article in Forbes Magazine, the worst thing you can do when designing a customer survey is have no goal in mind beforehand. Decide what you want to know and ask only the questions you need to ask. The article states: "Don't waste time and space asking for information that you don't really need. If it's an anonymous survey, you don't even need to ask the person's name or any other personal information." In an article about customer surveys from Verizon's business blog, a 3-5 minute survey covering 3-10 questions is a considerate, bite-sized survey. Brevity and focus will also respect your customers' time.

2. Don't get in the customer's way.

The Forbes article strongly suggests that you make no attempts to skew the survey in your own favor. Again, we all want positive reviews, but trying to rig your survey will either be transparent to savvy customers or (perhaps worse) will result in positive feedback that is nonetheless unhelpful and inaccurate.

3. Choose the best survey feedback tools.

Your feedback channels should be easy-to-use and you should use them consistently. Your survey responses should result in data that you can curate, analyze, augment over time, and continue to use for an extended period. The fact that you follow this blog or are reading this article means you're probably already investigating the best ways to collect customer feedback--ask Pulse For Good about our survey kiosk and data-collection tools and begin leveraging customer reviews right away.

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