The Evolution of Consumer Feedback and Its Growing Value

From yesteryear's slips of paper tucked into suggestion boxes to the instant online feedback modalities available today, what consumers say plays a critical role in business success and marketing strategies.

While customer and employee feedback has always symbolized a commitment to open communication and served as a springboard for improvements and new ideas, today's digital era amplifies its value and usefulness.

With the digital revolution in the 1980s, feedback mechanisms evolved from the written word and word-of-mouth to online opportunities. As the early digital avenues emerged, a new era where responsiveness and informed decisions based on analytics would offer a competitive edge began.

In the ensuing decades, the Internet's integration into daily life brought more convenient and accessible ways for consumers to provide input and for companies to gather it. As the technological advancements in the 1980s and 1990s transformed consumer feedback into actionable data, the rise of social media and online review platforms in the early part of the 21st century further amplified its value. These platforms provided more opportunities for consumers to offer opinions, share experiences, and provide reviews and ratings. And with that, they influenced new consumer decisions and provided additional valuable metrics.

Today, digital marketing has become a data-driven science. In addition to identifying your audience and consumer trends and anticipating future needs, customer feedback analytics can help determine customer satisfaction, the likelihood of referrals, and more. With this valuable information, you can make well-informed decisions on practice improvements or changes, new services, and where best to direct your marketing efforts.

While the opportunities for feedback and the associated analytics are already vast, new and emerging technologies promise more integrated, predictive, and immersive ways for consumers to provide and businesses to assess valuable input.