How to incorporate feedback systems into your online business

May 12

Note: This was originally sent out in December 2024, so that’s why there are a few Winter + New Year’s references. Don’t mind me, just updating the backlog five months later.

It's that time of year! The air is cool, the nights are long, and many of us are leveraging the end of 2024 to reflect on what's working, what's not, and what we want to cultivate for our businesses in 2025.

Whether you have specific goals swirling around your head already or you're still waiting for your next big idea to strike, this can be a powerful time to solicit the collective wisdom of your community.

So today, let's talk about what it might look like to gather and integrate ✨ feedback ✨

Why collect feedback from your customers, your team, and your audience?

1. Infusing feedback systems into our business ecosystems is a step we can take toward our operations being more trauma-informed. It invites an open channel for co-creation and sharing power. Soliciting and integrating feedback disrupts the hierarchical dynamic of you as the sole “authority” within the business, and your team members + audience as the passive “receivers” of your tasks + creations.

2. Input from current and potential customers can be a powerful indicator of whether there is a market for your budding ideas. The more you can tailor your next product or service to what folks need, the less likely your launch will be met with crickets.

3. When it comes to your team members and collaborators, opening an intentional line for their honest opinions can mean more job satisfaction, new opportunities to name and repair any tension bubbling beneath the surface, and likely a higher quality of work because they can feel truly a part of what they're contributing.

How might we gather feedback, now AND as a part of our regular business operations?

Surveys 📝

Implement it now: Send out an End of the Year Survey. To make it easy for folks to participate, consider making it short and sweet, using closed questions whenever possible, and adding an incentive for those who participate. Allowing the option to submit the survey anonymously is also a great way to get that really honest feedback from current and past customers!

Implement it regularly: Experiment with “exit surveys” for clients and team members that get automatically sent via email when someone cycles out of a project, an offering, or the business as a whole.

Interviews 🗣️

Implement it now: Schedule 30- or 60-minute interviews on Zoom with your customers and/or team members to dip into their experience within the business and where there might be opportunities for growth.

Implement it regularly: Depending on your capacity, you might add regular informational interviews to your checklist of maintenance activities each quarter, or at the beginning of each new project. For example, I’m currently conducting 30-minute interviews with the “superstars” who have have been engaged members of my clients’ business community for years, so we can build a new membership offering around what they most need in this moment.

Instagram Stories 📱

Implement it now: Use the polling and Q&A features on IG Stories to volley a few questions that are top-of-mind as you wind down the year. Closed questions that folks can answer with a single touch of their thumb create an easy on-ramp for valuable feedback.
Implement it regularly: Add this practice to the “to-do” list template that you reference each time you’re exploring the creation of a new product, new iteration of an old service, new sales period for one of your signature offerings, etc. Not only can these invite community opinions, they can also help create some hype around whatever you have brewing behind the scenes!

In-Session Observations 🔎

Implement it now: During all of your meetings from now until the end of the year, set an intention to be extra curious about what is coming up for your clients and customers. Make a note of the common emotions, questions, and concerns that crop up so you can address them in the new year through customer service communications or marketing messaging.
Implement it regularly: Create a Post-Session Survey that you and/or your team members fill out after each coaching call, consultation appointment, virtual event, etc. to gather these data points on an ongoing basis. Add a recurring task to your project management tool or calendar to sort through these surveys and highlight common themes.

Data Analysis 📈

Implement it now: Carve out a “Data Day” before the end of the year where you jot down a list of KPIs that you are curious about (saves on social media, customer churn, email campaigns with the highest open rate, event attendees, website traffic, etc.), find them in the backend of your various online platforms, look for themes amongst the 1s and 0s, and write down how these observations might inform future campaigns, launches, offers, social media content, email newsletters, etc.
Implement it regularly: Add a section of your monthly or quarterly administrative meetings for a review of the data points that feel important to your business. Have the responsible team member add relevant pieces to the agenda and analyze them as a group for lessons learned. If you're a solopreneur, you can make a regular appointment to do this practice on your own!

Now What?

All of this feedback is really of no use unless we invite it to inform our actions. The integration of your team and community members' responses is as important as the data collection itself.

Once you’ve conducted your interviews, collected your survey answers, and collated your quantitative data, you might set an appointment at the end of December or in early January to review it all independently and/or as a team. See if you can extrapolate themes and opportunities for action, whether they be small fixes or larger shifts with several to-do list items.

The goal is to leave any review sessions with ideas of how you might build upon what you’ve already created, change course based on the needs of your people, and/or take accountability + patch up instances where you might have missed the mark.

From here, generate a tangible to-do list and infuse these action items into your 2025 business plans. You might choose to start with the issues that are easiest to fix and snowball to more complex areas of growth. Or, you could choose to address customer and team needs based on which aspects feel the most urgent.

Remember: all of this doesn’t have to get done this week, in January, or even by the end of Q1. Pick a strategy or two that feels important, and let that guide you toward slow and incremental progress within your business!