How do you use customer feedback and surveys to improve your cross-selling techniques?

1 Identify your cross-selling goals

Before you design your feedback and survey questions, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your cross-selling strategy. Do you want to increase the average order value, the number of repeat purchases, the customer lifetime value, or the referral rate? Do you want to cross-sell specific products or services, or a range of options? Do you want to target certain segments or personas of your customer base, or all of them? Having a clear goal will help you craft relevant and specific questions that will give you useful insights.

2 Choose the right feedback and survey methods

There are many ways to collect customer feedback and surveys, such as online forms, email, phone, chat, social media, or in-person. The method you choose depends on several factors, such as the type of information you want to gather, the stage of the customer journey, the level of engagement, and the resources available. For example, if you want to get feedback on a recent purchase, you might use a short online survey that pops up on your website or is sent via email. If you want to explore the customer's needs, preferences, or pain points, you might use a phone call or a chat session that allows for more interaction and probing.

3 Ask the right feedback and survey questions

When asking customers questions, ensure that they are relevant, specific, and concise. Additionally, open-ended questions are preferable to yes/no or rating questions as they provide more detailed and nuanced responses. Examples of good questions to ask for cross-selling purposes include: What are the main benefits or outcomes you desire from using our product or service? What challenges or frustrations are you facing with your current situation or solution? Are there any other products or services you use or are interested in that are related to our product or service? How do you typically make decisions about buying new products or services? How likely would you be to recommend our product or service to others?

4 Analyze and act on the feedback and survey results

Once you have collected the feedback and survey responses, you need to analyze them and look for patterns, trends, gaps, and opportunities. You can use tools like word clouds, sentiment analysis, or text mining to identify the most common words, phrases, emotions, or themes in the responses. You can also segment the responses by customer characteristics, such as demographics, behavior, or purchase history. Based on your analysis, you can then tailor your cross-selling offers and messages to match the customer's needs, interests, and preferences. You can also use the feedback and survey results to improve your product or service quality, features, or benefits.

5 Test and optimize your cross-selling techniques

Finally, you need to measure the effectiveness of your cross-selling techniques and see if they are achieving your goals. You can use metrics like conversion rate, revenue per customer, customer satisfaction, retention, or advocacy to evaluate your performance. You can also use tools like A/B testing, split testing, or multivariate testing to compare different cross-selling offers, messages, or channels and see which ones perform better. You should also keep collecting and analyzing customer feedback and surveys to monitor the changes in customer behavior, perception, or expectations and adjust your cross-selling techniques accordingly.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?