Nudging users for feedback in the heat of the moment

A simple tactic for getting more user feedback on features or services

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

We are told not to take decisions in the heat of the moment. This is solid advice. It helps us avoid making decisions when we are emotionally charged.

But if there’s one thing that should be done in the heat of the moment, then it’s collecting feedback from the users.

Yes. User feedback is best captured right after the users are done availing a service, using a feature or consuming a piece of content.

Why?

Because, not asking for immediate feedback from users creates the following challenges:

• Time lag between the user experiencing something and being asked for feedback — Surveys like NPs, which run at a quarterly or half yearly cadence are often disjointed from the real time experience of the user. Due to the time lag, users forget crucial details while giving feedback.
• Feedback and ratings are often too high level and not actionable — Questions such as “Rate your experience of using this product” are often too broad and open ended. The user has to rely too much on memory and give a single rating based on multiple past interactions with the product.

Making the ratings process immediate and specific to a focus area helps the user give accurate and useful feedback.

Here are some examples from my personal experience.

Feedback during teaching sessions

Occasionally, I do learning sessions for product aspirants. I prefer getting feedback towards the end of the session instead of sending an email afterwards. So, I flash a poll for the students to rate the content of the session before we take concluding questions from participants. The response rate of this approach is much higher in comparison to an email survey.

Feedback for a digital service

• Uber — It flashes you a trip rating pop-up immediately after the ride ends.

Uber’s driver rating pop-up (Source)

• Swiggy/Zomato — These food delivery apps ask you to rate the delivery experience as soon as the order is delivered.

Rate your delivery in Swiggy (Source)

• Telephonic Support Experience — Once you call up a company’s helpline number, you are connected to a support agent. After answering your query, the support agent asks you to rate whether they were able to help you or not.
• Experience with activating an extended warranty plan for a smartwatch —I bought an extended warranty plan from One Assist for a smartwatch. A few days later, their support agent called me and helped me digitally activate the warranty plan. After he was done, he gently guided me to their Amazon product page and nudged me to provide them a rating.

I am pretty sure that had I not been nudged by the agent, I wouldn’t have bothered to give them a rating.

Feedback for an in-store experience

• A trip to Tim Hortons — Last week, we went to Tim Hortons and ordered a coffee. Some time after we had received our order, one of their staff members approached us. She asked us about our experience. Once we gave positive feedback, she asked us to rate them on google reviews. It didn’t stop at that — she opened the relevant link on my phone and “gently” nudged me to give them a review and a rating.

Regardless of the coffee’s taste, its unlikely that I would have rated them on my own.

Feature specific feedback

• WhatsApp and Google Meet —They ask for a rating immediately after the call ends.

Google Meet asks you to rate audio and video immediately after call ends

• Slack huddle — You are asked for a rating (Good/Bad) immediately after huddle ends.

Slack asks for feedback on the huddle immediately after it ends

• New feature launches — When companies launch new features, they tend to ask for feature specific feedback immediately after you use it.

Content Specific Feedback

Companies churn out a lot of content to help customers and prospects. They need feedback on whether the content is working. Here are some examples:

• Email Newsletter — At the end of the newsletter, users are asked for feedback about the newsletter’s content. (Since the content is fresh in the user’s mind, asking for an immediate rating is really helpful)

Rating question at the end of a newsletter email

• Help Articles — Customers land on help articles when they struggle to understand how a feature works. Asking for a Yes/No rating at the end of the article, helps understand whether the article is helpful for the reader or not.

A simple Yes/No rating widget at the end of a help article

Guidelines for getting user feedback in the ‘heat of the moment’

Based on the above, we can formulate the following principles for asking users feedback:

• When to ask for user rating — immediately after the user’s interaction with the product, service or content.
• How to ask for user rating — Best way to get a rating is while you are talking to users. Nudge them to the place where they can give you the rating. If realtime customer<>company interaction is not part of the, process focus on getting in-app feedback immediately after the feature or service is used.
• Seek Localized feedback — Ask for a rating from the user on a specific aspect of the product, service or piece of content (for example — a feature you launched or a product area). Talking about specifics always elicits better responses.
• In case of a less than perfect rating, always ask the user for a reason — This helps you identify scope for improvement in the product.

Conclusion

Its not easy to get user feedback. Especially when the feedback is about a specific aspect of a product or service.

The best strategy here is to ask users for feedback immediately after they have used the feature or consumed content or availed the service.

This massively increases the likelihood of user responding with a rating and review.

This feedback can then be used as the fuel to launch yourself on the journey to building a better customer experience.