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When should I ask my customers for feedback?

With my local college tutoring business, we form short-term relationships with our customers (usually 1 or 2 semesters, then they don’t need us anymore ;-) ) One of the problems I’ve had is deciding when and how to ask for feedback.

I set up a feedback page, and of course we are on Yelp, Google+, etc. But we get very little spontaneous feedback or reviews from customers. We tried emailing customers last semester after midterms, explicitly asking them to leave feedback on our feedback page. Unfortunately, we got a very low response rate (about 6%).

The way I see it, I have a couple strategies for timing:

  1. Ask each client after their first session. This might mesh well with the fact that customers are probably trying to decide how they feel about us immediately after the first session, rather than the 5th, 10th, or 20th. On the other hand, one session is hardly a good “sample size” for someone to form an opinion.
  2. Ask everyone after midterms (this didn’t seem to work so well).
  3. Ask everyone before finals (untested). At this point, clients have had plenty of time to get to know us, but they haven’t skipped town for winter/summer break.
  4. Ask everyone after finals. I strongly dislike this idea, because most clients will be eager to leave school and school-related things behind.

I could also ask clients at multiple points in the semester, and perhaps set up something to automatically email them after the 1st, 5th, 10th sessions. But, I don’t want my customers to feel nagged.

How should I design my feedback-gathering strategy?

Answer 3454

First impressions count. They can make the difference between a client staying and saying nice things about you or not.

First encounters count too. They’re a crucial moment to collect feedback because your client hasn’t adjusted to your process and work habits yet. If there is one moment to collect interesting insights on the latter, this is it.

As such, ask feedback:

  1. After their first session. Ask a short and open ended question: “Was this useful for you? Is there anything we can improve?” It’s a sample of one session, but it’s in fact quite important because it’ll let you collect the information you need to better serve that particular client.

  2. After their second session with a similar question (“Was this more useful than last time? Is there anything else we can improve?”) if the first one led you to make material adjustments. Rinse and repeat until your client expresses satisfaction.

The next stage is collecting feedback after mid-terms. For this, run a survey using Google Forms or equivalent, explaining that you’re looking for insights to serve clients even better. Keep it short.

The final stage is collecting testimonials after the finals. Contact clients after they received their results. Focus on those that got the most out of your service.

Don’t source this last task to a soulless call center: the call should come from someone senior within the organization or from someone (e.g. tutor, administrative assistant) that the student knows already. Congratulate them on the phone, briefly ask what their plans are moving forward, and then ask if they’d recommend your service. Ask why not if they answer they wouldn’t; prompt them to post a review on Yelp if they would.

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