14 Customer Feedback Tools for Small Business

Feedback is essential to running a business. It tells you what’s working and what’s not. It provides you with fresh ideas on ways to improve your business. And it gives you insight into the needs of your customers.

Here is a list of customer feedback tools. Some of the tools collect feedback, others tools provide platforms to generate ideas. Most of these tools have free options, making them excellent resources to help you connect with your customers.

14 Customer Feedback Tools

1. SuggestionBox. SuggestionBox is a suggestion management system. Put a SuggestionBox on your site with a widget or API. Identify the things your customers really want. Users submit and vote on ideas. Features include private messaging to customers, auto-responders, and message broadcasting to keep followers updated. Provide status updates to let them know you are working on their suggestion. Customers can make a SuggestionBox page for your company without your consent, so check to see if a box already exists. Price: $49.50 per month for 1 box and 1 internal user; $9.95 per month for each additional internal user.
   

   SuggestionBox.com.

2. Kampyle. Kampyle is a widget for collecting feedback on product pages, in product search fields, and in the shopping cart. Kampyle provides utilities to converse with customers when it is most useful to drive conversion rates. Kampyle Feedback Analytics assesses problems and shows you where the pain points are for visitors. Kampyle automates resolutions to routine customer support problems. Canned response features let you acknowledge and provide instruction for resolving routine problems without human intervention. Kampyle feedback forms automatically prompt visitors to include their contact details, as well as opt-in to the website’s newsletter, helping you to build a relationship with the customer. The app integrates with Google Analytics, Omniture and Nedstat — three analytics platforms — providing you with better insight into your customer interactions. Kampyle also integrates with Salesforce.com. Price: Ranges from free to $499 per month.
   

   Kampyle.

3. Get Satisfaction. Get Satisfaction builds online communities that enable productive conversations between companies and their customers. Get Satisfaction directs a focused environment for companies and customers to ask questions, share ideas, report problems, and give praise. Your employees can play a role with community moderation. Results are prioritized and searchable. Analytics dashboard provides comprehensive measurement capabilities. Customers can access Get Satisfaction from widgets embedded in your site, or from a Facebook app. Mobile app is available for iPhone. Price: Ranges from free to $289 per month.
   

   Get Satisfaction.

4. Feedbackify. Feedbackify is a website widget to receive feedback from your website visitors. Create your customized form, copy and past code into your site’s HTML, and start getting feedback. Use the feedback dashboard to view feedback in real-time. Get information on your customers. Filter the feedback by categories and subcategories. This is a basic tool for getting feedback forms to your customer, receiving and organizing results. Price: $19 per month.
   

   Feedbackify.

5. UserVoice. UserVoice provides a forum for your customers to submit and vote on feedback. Inline comment threads allow users to discuss and develop ideas, making it easy for people to share. Results are prioritized. Receive daily updates on your forum community. When you update an idea, UserVoice notifies everyone interested. Run email analytics to see how your responses are received. Customers access the forum by a widget embedded on your site or a dedicated forum page. There is also a Facebook app and a third-party plugin for WordPress. Mobile app is available for iPhone. Price: Ranges from free to $125 per month.
   

   UserVoice.

6. UserEcho. UserEcho is a feedback widget to collect customer responses and ideas. From your site pages via the widget, customers access a forum to leave feedback, vote and choose the best ideas. You can monitor and receive statistics on results. You can respond to ranked feedback by tag, respond directly, or broadcast the status of a suggestion. UserEcho organizes your content through tags, merge and search. Users can login through Facebook and Twitter accounts. Price: Ranges from free to $256 per month.
   

   UserEcho.

7. OpinionLab. OpinionLab offers a wide range of tools to gather customer feedback from websites, mobile sites and apps, social media touch points, e-marketing campaigns, emails, online advertisements, and more. OpinionLab uses multiple-choice questions and open response areas, and gathers information on the customers, as well. OpinionLab helps you to get page-specific feedback, rich contextual analytics, and quantitative and qualitative customer input. Reporting tool provides clients with both site-wide and page-specific analytics. Dashboard gives you real-time access to ratings and comments, enabling you to monitor usability, tweak designs, and track the success of new iterations. Mobile app is available for iPhone. OpinionLab is an enterprise customer-feedback solution, and is likely to be cost-prohibitive to small businesses. Price: Pricing varies.
   

   OpinionLab.

8. IdeaScale. IdeaScale provides a platform for branded customer suggestion communities to share, vote, and discuss feedback. Users generate and vote on ideas, and the best ideas bubble up. Watch as communities form, discuss and vote. Widgets allow visitors the ability to contribute from any page of your site. Badges and leaderboards promote the social aspect of the community. You can respond to ideas or mark them with customizable tabs. Integrates with Google Analytics. There is a Facebook app. Mobile app is available on iPhone. Price: Ranges from free to $99 per month.
   

   IdeaScale.

9. SparkBin. If you’re interested in feedback to generate ideas, you should be aware of SparkBin. SparkBin is a social app for users to suggest and discuss company ideas. SparkBin is for Google Apps users only, for now. SparkBin has not opened its doors yet, but you can sign up for access to the beta.
   

   SparkBin.

10. Gripe. Gripe is a social platform for customers to provide feedback on companies. Create a merchant account to claim your business. Customers can initiate feedback on a company, so check to see if your company is already listed. Resolve customer gripes and receive cheers. Integrates with Facebook and Twitter. Mobile apps available on Android, iPhone. Price: Free.
    

    Gripe.

11. DialogCentral. DialogCentral is a geolocation-based mobile app for customers to provide feedback on businesses, primarily brick-and-mortar. By registering your business location, the feedback submitted to that location is sent to the email address you’ll use to register. You also gain access to customer contact information as its provided and standard point-of-sale materials for brick-and-mortar locations. Available for iPad, iPhone. Price: Free.
    

    DialogCentral.

12. WebsiteChat.net. If you are interested in a more direct option for customer feedback, consider installing a live chat widget on your site from a live-chat company, such as WebsiteChat.net. Communicate with your customers and track in real-time. Price: Plans start at $4.99 per month.
    

    WebsiteChat.net.

13. AnyMeeting. Another live option is to invite your customers to give feedback via a live meeting. AnyMeeting is a free online meeting service that lets you hold unlimited meetings for up to 200 participants. Features include screen sharing and session recording. AnyMeeting also has polling tools for you to direct feedback and gather results. Price: Free.
    

    AnyMeeting.

14. Facebook. Use Facebook to receive feedback. Your status update is a great tool to initiate a dialogue with your followers. Also, through the Facebook Developers platform, you can install a Comment Box plugin on your website, providing your customers with an immediate space to give feedback. As users need to be logged into a real Facebook account, they cannot post anonymous content. Price: Free.
    

    Facebook.