Collecting feedback from the users is a crucial part of your business. Inputs from users help you to improve your product or service as a business. And you can do this through two methods: customer satisfaction surveys and online review websites.

Both have their benefits and flaws. But both are equally effective if used properly to analyze users’ sentiments. So let’s tell you some pointers and differences in this crisp post.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys Vs. Online Review Websites

The Difference

Customer satisfaction surveys collect feedback directly from the users and are sent by the businesses. In addition, online review websites are open for customers to drop in their feedback about products they have used.

While customer satisfaction surveys are quite personal, and only companies know the feedback and outcomes, online reviews on websites are public, and companies have no control over them. Therefore, you can’t avoid negative publicity because of poor reviews. However, these are still effective when appropriately analyzed.

Benefits of Customer Satisfaction Survey

        1. Collect Data

Personal feedback from users provides you qualitative and quantitative data to assess your offerings. With niched tools, you can pass this data and generate insights for yourself to track your progress and analyze various parameters that affect your business.

With the right insights, you can take business decisions that are informed and can produce desired results.

        2. Private Feedback

Feedback through paid online surveys is private. Only you know the users’ responses to the surveys. So, the collected data and resultant insights are privy to you. This doesn’t mar your reputation if the data doesn’t speak in your favor. Hence, you can design your new business plans for improvement under less pressure.

        3. Focused Questionnaire

You can’t control reviews on websites. Customers who have bad experiences with one of your products can criticize your other good offerings, which can dent your reputation.

But with survey forms sent to the customers where they need to answer only a specific set of questions, you control their feedback to some extent. Hence, you can focus on a specific area in a survey and get competent answers.

For instance, when you seek feedback on your furnishing solution for the bedroom, you focus only on your bedroom-specific offerings. So, chances of customers getting influenced by your lesser popular kitchen tools are slim.

        4. Specific Answers

With reviews websites, users’ responses can lean towards pointers that may not be related to your service or product. For instance, poor delivery or packaging may not be your product’s issue but can still pull your rating down.

With customer satisfaction research, you send specific questions to the respondents. Thus, you’re sure to receive what you need and can avoid unnecessary negativity and undue pressure.

        5. Qualitative Assessment

Online reviews are more verbose and inaccurate. It is challenging to combine all those wordy reviews to churn out a conclusion.

As mentioned earlier, with specific answers to direct questions, you can easily collect stats and assess the quality. Nowadays, advanced analytics tools can help you to analyze the responses to decipher tangible results.

        6. Social Proof and Trust

Despite being personal, you can always make the positive feedback publicly available on social media and your websites. You can use feedback in your favor as a marketing tool and gain trust from the users. You can even interview satisfied customers based on the survey results and make them public. So, possibilities with online surveys are not limited.

Benefits of Online Review Websites

        1. Social Proof

Online reviews on websites establish social proof of a company offering standards and quality. As a company, you don’t need to ask users personally.

        2. Trust

With good reviews on review websites, you can establish trust about your product in the market. The words are users’ and not yours. So, they act as an attestation to your good offerings.

        3. Brand Positioning

Rating around 4 and above, positions your brand as a leader in the market. With review websites offering comparisons with your peers, you can surely ace the game with better ratings and positive reviews. Otherwise, you can learn where to improve.

        4. Public feedback

Online reviews are available in the open, and anyone can read them. A positive review can attract more prospects, while a negative review can alienate a prospective user. Since you don’t have any control over this feedback, this is a bittersweet fruit you should bite into carefully.

        5. Marketing and Advertising

​​​​​​​Positive reviews on the internet mean free publicity for your company. Reviews that speak volumes about your work and good products can increase your leads and hence, customers.

What to Choose: Online Surveys or Online Reviews?

The simple answer to this question is to combine the benefits of both methods.

Reach out to customers who have given positive feedback on surveys. Ask them to drop a similar review on online review websites. Reach out to customers via emails or phone calls which have dropped negative remarks openly on websites. Seek their suggestions on what can be improved and how you can make it right.

Inform your customers personally of the improvements and results. Seek their suggestions again. Publish favorable reviews in your marketing endeavors and websites.

If you have no choice but to choose one of these: we would suggest taking the route of online surveys and seek personal feedback. Then, start working on the negative comments and repeat the process. This can surely fetch favorable online reviews later.

What is Your Next Step?

If you want to collect statistical and focused feedback from your customers, we are here to help. We at Opinionest are an experienced team among the best paid survey sites. And we help market research consultants and companies to create branded online surveys for their users. Please reach out to us here to initiate a discussion.