What Visitors Want: 13 Tools for Collecting Feedback on Your Site

One of the best ways to discover how you can better your website is by asking your visitors what they want to see. Here are several tools that allow you to gather feedback from your visitors easily and effectively.

Most digital marketers are well versed in techniques like A/B testing and usability testing, but when it comes to really identifying new opportunities to improve your website, there’s nothing quite like asking visitors what they want. Gathering real visitors’ feedback through Voice of the Customer (VoC) research is simple, inexpensive, and extremely powerful – often uncovering issues that would never be identified through Web analytics, mouse tracking, click tracking, or even usability testing.

User feedback tools make it easy for visitors of your website to communicate directly with you about their experience, without interfering with their overall purchase journey or other actions you wish them to take on the site. The standard convention for capturing VoC feedback is with a small button on the bottom right of the screen that opens a pop-up widget when clicked. The widget then presents a survey – ranging from a single question to a full questionnaire – asking about things like how easy it was to complete their task on the site, or what would prevent them from purchasing today. With VoC feedback, you can:

• • Keep track of common complaints made by your online visitors – and then test different options for fixing the problems

• • Make it easier for customers to purchase the products they want online

• • Learn about key product or service attributes that are important to visitors

• • Use the ideas you’ve gathered from visitors to improve your offerings or other elements of your customer experience

• • Learn about features or functions of your site that aren’t working as intended (or don’t currently exist)

• • Identify new opportunities for testing conversion paths and/or page elements

13 Tools for Collecting VoC Feedback About Your Site

Following is a mega list of tools – some of which are free or very low cost – that you can use to start collecting feedback from your site visitors.

Feedbackify: Features include a simple form editor that enables you to add your own logo, questions, and categories, the ability to customize the “tab” button that will appear on your site, and a real-time feedback dashboard. You’ll be able to see what page the feedback was collected on, what technology the visitor was using, and the geographic location of the visitor, all for just $19 per month.

Kampyle: With solutions for collecting feedback from multiple customer touch points – including websites, mobile, and even in-store, Kampyle has quickly grown from early innovator to market leader. Its robust form capabilities and impressive analytics make it a choice for large enterprise sites as well as SMBs, but with monthly pricing starting at $249 it’s not likely to be an option for smaller sites.

Qualaroo: Unlike some other options, Qualaroo’s survey questions are customized according to what page the visitor is on, popping up without user interaction after a specific time frame. For example, on Qualaroo’s own homepage, the pop-up question is “What are you hoping to get from Qualaroo,” but on one of their product pages the question changes to “What’s keeping you from starting your trial?” Additional features include intelligent question branching, integration with other analytics solutions, and a specific mobile survey option. Pricing starts at $63 per month, but many features aren’t available until you commit to the $200-per-month plan.

Usabilla: In addition to triggering surveys based on visitor behavior, Usabilla Live offers the unique ability to put your visitors in control, allowing them to determine what page or website feature they’d like to give feedback on. Additional features give users the ability to highlight the specific area on the page that they are commenting on and use emoticons to quickly express the emotion behind their feedback. Functionality is available across devices, and pricing starts at $49 per month.

Webreep: Using advanced algorithms, Webreep calculates visitor dissatisfaction with your website based on a four-point framework. The model was developed specifically to provide an accurate assessment of a visitor’s “quality of experience” using minimum questions. You are able to customize the tool, but Webreep’s uniqueness lies in this proprietary model, which is fully explained on its site. Another Webreep feature is the breadth of survey initiation options it allows, from slide-out feedback tab to coupon slider and custom buttons. Prices start at $29 per month.

FeedbackDaddy: Like Qualaroo, FeedbackDaddy allows you to add simple and precise survey questions to the bottom corner of your website to collect just in time feedback from the site based on specific behaviors, needs, demographics, or any other relevant data. Your reporting dashboard will track referrer, browser, city, IP address, and follow up questions that might have been presented to a user in response to their first question. FeedbackDaddy offers most of the same core features that are included in other tools, plus one very important bonus: the availability of a free option for low-traffic sites. But even the paid plans are very inexpensive, ranging from $10 to $30 per month.

Wishbox: Sometimes giving written feedback just takes too much time. Enter Wishbox, a fun little tool that allows users to submit their feedback via annotated screenshot. When the user clicks on the customizable feedback button, Wishbox opens a pop-up window that includes a screenshot of the current page, along with editing tools and comment fields. This allows users to either draw or describe the problem, whichever they prefer. As a result, however, there is no analytics dashboard. Prices start at $10 per month.

Marketizator: This tool, currently in beta, shows a lightbox-type survey to a client-defined segment of visitors. It offers six types of questions with branching options, an advanced segmentation tool based on 29 different criteria, custom skins, and scheduling/frequency controls. The tool also includes functionality for A/B testing and content personalization, so your monthly price covers more than you might find with other tools. But be warned: If robust reporting is important to you, you might not be happy with what you get with Marketizator. Pricing starts at just $19 per month.

IdeaScale: Formerly known as SuggestionBox, IdeaScale is an interactive suggestion system for users to submit suggestions of all types, including ideas for your website. After an idea is submitted, others can vote on it, and the most popular ideas bubble to the top. Ideascale is mostly used for collecting employee feedback and ideas and encouraging inter-departmental collaboration. Feedback forms can be customized and ideas can be submitted anonymously. Pricing is based on number of employees and starts at $2,500 per year, although the site does include a link to create a free account.

OpinionLab: An enterprise-level VoC feedback tool serving more than half of the Fortune 50 companies, OpinionLab’s robust suite of solutions may be beyond reach for many websites. OpinionLab’s powerful industry benchmarking, including patented Customer Feedback Index and Functional Mean Ratings, are derived from more than 1 billion pieces of real customer data collected from hundreds of the world’s biggest brands. Feedback can be collected via Web, mobile and in-store, and pricing is customized according to usage.

iPerceptions: There’s a lot more to iPerceptions than website feedback, which in itself may make this option too beefy for smaller websites. Not only does iPerceptions collect visitor feedback on your site, it also injects those insights back into your business processes, enabling you to look at data from the entire digital customer lifecycle. iPerceptions provides support for multiple languages, a large variety of question and logic types, and the ability to customize the design, invitation type, and format (e.g. full-length survey or smaller comment card). A free plan with limited functionality is available in addition a $400 per month premium service and custom-priced enterprise plan.

UserReport: UserReport is a free solution that offers a combination of both visitor survey and feedback forum. Their survey technology supports more than 60 languages; runs on desktops, tablets, and smartphones; and gives you the ability to import survey feedback and demographic data such as age, gender, and income directly into your Google Analytics reports. You can use ready-made survey templates or customize your own. And with UserReport’s feedback forum option you can let users submit bug reports, make website suggestions, and vote on ideas submitted by others. Pricing isn\’t available online, but UserReport’s website does offer a link to create a free account.

WebEngage: WebEngage lets you collect feedback, gather customer insights, and drive conversions via push notifications. Survey questions can be targeted to a specific audience, for example only to visitors who come via Google search, who come from certain geographic locations, or who have spent at least 60 seconds on your site. With the tool’s built-in rule builder, you can specify any combination of rules for every survey you deploy. WebEngage also allows you to run proactive “need assistance?” or “give us your details to get a coupon code” surveys, as well as push targeted offers and marketing promos to specific segments of visitors. Plans range from $29-249 per month, based largely on the volume of survey responses you can receive. A free plan is also available for personal websites and blogs.

This article originally appeared in Tim’s ClickZ column August 5, 2014