Customer Feedback Tools Reviewed: 9 Top Picks & Rankings

Explore and compare 9 top customer feedback tools to enhance insights and improve user satisfaction.

10 mins read
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While buying something off Amazon, ever scroll straight down to the user reviews?

Us too.

Before clicking “Buy,” we want to understand people’s real-life experiences with a product. Companies rely on this information. They want to find out how people perceive their product and brand. What are users’ grievances?

So, how do they take millions of customer reviews and extract meaning from them?

Using customer feedback tools.

These applications streamline the process of feedback collection, management, and analysis. Freeing up designers’ and researchers’ valuable time. They can divert their focus on generating insights that drive decision-making.

Let’s explore the reasons why customer feedback management software is fast becoming vital to the UX toolkit.

TL;DR – 9 Best Customer Feedback Tools

In this article, we’ll introduce different types of customer feedback tools for businesses:

We illustrate the importance of using feedback tools in research collection and analysis. Equip yourself with knowledge and choose the right feedback software for your company. Understand the benefits and challenges that these tools present. And how to overcome them.

Let’s dive in.

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What Are Customer Feedback Tools?

First, the definition of customer feedback:

Any information provided by customers about their experiences with a product or service. Users reveal their satisfaction levels and identify potential areas for improvement.

There are two approaches to collecting customer feedback:

  1. Active: Companies request feedback directly from their users. E.g., asking customers to write product reviews on your website.
  2. Passive: Customers provide feedback without a company asking for it. E.g., a customer support ticket or online user review.

Customer feedback tools facilitate the collection, management, and analysis of feedback. They assist UX and product teams during every stage of the feedback loop:

A four-step feedback process diagram with RECEIVE, ANALYSIS, RESPOND, and ACT stages.

Tools help assimilate data from multiple channels. This includes social media posts, support tickets, surveys, reviews, and emails. Organize and classify data using customer feedback management platforms. Categorize feedback into bugs, complaints, feature requests, and suggestions.

Finally, use analysis capabilities to sift through volumes of data. Sentiment and behavioral analysis tell you what customers are up to and why. Identify trends and patterns in feedback data and convert them into actionable insights.

Businesses use software for customer feedback to make informed decisions. These improve products and the overall user experience over time.

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Benefits of Using a Customer Feedback Platform

Here are a few reasons why companies must consider adding a customer feedback management platform to their tool stack:

Enhances the User Experience

Customer feedback reveals the strengths and weaknesses of a product.

Users uncover usability issues and roadblocks while interacting with the UI. Nip problems in the bud – before they become expensive and cumbersome.

Minimize risk by attacking user pain points at the source. Don’t sleep on customer recommendations, either. You never know where the next best product feature comes from. All contribute to a memorable user journey.

Promotes User-centricity

By chasing features and functionality, developers can lose sight of customer needs. Collecting feedback through a continuous discovery process helps them improve a product over time.

With feedback, designers, developers, marketers, and product teams all develop user empathy. Their every decision assesses how it impacts the end user. It aligns teams across an organization, focusing their efforts on solving customer problems. Making the culture more customer-centric.

Informs Decision Making

With the power of data, companies make informed decisions.

Analyzing customer data helps dictate a business’ strategy. How should they allocate resources?

Marketers understand more about the target audience, creating personalized campaigns for them. Designers and developers use feedback to validate ideas and identify customer issues. The frequency and severity of an issue determine its priority for product teams.

No more gut feelings or hunches.

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Adds Efficiency & Scale

Amass terabytes of user data using a customer feedback platform. Integrations with popular UX tools help to gather all your data in one place. That’s data collection at scale.

Automation helps streamline data analysis. Use advanced AI features to run a preliminary analysis before beginning your work. Validate ideas quickly and evaluate the ROI of various research initiatives.

Learn more about your customers and the marketplace.

Improves Customer Satisfaction

Keep your ear to the ground, listening for user issues. Customers want to know that their feedback doesn’t fall on deaf ears. Acting on their suggestions and grievances shows you’re listening.

Increase customer retention. If users interact with an app that’s optimized for them, they’re likely to remain loyal to a company. In time, they become brand advocates. Free word-of-mouth marketing.

Establishes a Competitive Advantage

Collecting feedback periodically does two things:

  1. Sets you apart: Differentiate your company from competitors by collecting user input. It shows you’re taking user suggestions on board as you develop and update a product.
  2. Keeps you agile: Use feedback to constantly tap into evolving customer trends. Identify prevailing market conditions and pivot to stay relevant with the times.

Additionally, feedback reveals underserved markets or opportunities. Discover the next big thing.

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9 Best Customer Feedback Software

Check out the very best tools for customer feedback.

We’ve covered the basic functionality of each type and included our picks for the top products in each. There’s also some additional reading if you want to deep dive into each category:

Customer Feedback Collection Tools

Let’s look at the two types:

Online Survey Tools

Create and distribute quantitative or qualitative surveys with survey tools. Leverage their extensive template galleries or build your own from scratch. Add branching logic to customize surveys based on responses. Most tools offer their own suite of survey analytics, too.

Top survey tools: SurveyMonkey, Typeform

Two just won’t do? Head over to our comprehensive guide to UX survey tools.

User Testing and Visual Feedback Tools

Optimize the user experience with these platforms. Observe and analyze people’s behavior as they navigate through a product. Use heatmaps and attention analysis tools to see what catches the user’s eye.

Conduct A/B testing and test information architecture. Test prototypes to validate assumptions and get instant user feedback. Catch problems early to minimize resources spent on a product.

Top user testing and visual feedback tools: UserTesting, Hotjar

Read our list of the best user testing tools

Customer Feedback Management Software

Feedback management solutions consolidate all your customer feedback, making it easily accessible. Aggregate all your quantitative and qualitative data into one database. Consolidate insights across emails, support tickets, surveys, and interviews.

Predictably, Marvin is our pick of all the customer feedback management tools.

A dedicated user research repository, Marvin integrates with apps designers and researchers love. It accepts any file format you throw at it. Protects user data with HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC2 compliance. Search by keywords across your entire library of data. No more messy file management.

Want to learn more? Here’s our take on the best CFM software.

HeyMarvin Homepage

Customer Feedback Analysis Tools

When it comes to customer feedback analytics software, you first need your data in one place.

Then, you need some powerful analysis capabilities.

Marvin has some nifty AI features. It creates time-stamped insights and summaries from interview recordings. Get the gist of a lengthy transcript and dive further into the analysis. Use Ask AI to interrogate your data — Marvin now analyzes graphs and images, too. Unearth patterns and trends across projects.

Give Marvin a spin. Sign up for a free account today.

Create insightful reports with interactive charts and highlight reels. Share them effortlessly via a link with your colleagues. Elevate the voice of the customer across your organization.

We explore this topic in greater detail. Here are the best customer insight tools for data analysis.

Voice of the Customer Software

Voice of the customer(VoC) platforms helps collect and analyze user feedback and opinions. Teams use insights to inform their UX research strategy. Collate data from various customer touch points such as websites, mobile applications, social media, and reviews. Drive product changes that enhance the user journey.

Top VoC software: Medallia, Qualitrics XM

Community and Review Management Platforms

Community platforms serve as a digital space where users share content and interact with each other. User forums and expert insights help customers expand their product knowledge. Read unadulterated reviews from real product users.

Information exchange helps members clarify doubts and share solutions and opinions. Businesses leverage this information to make product improvements.

Top platforms: Capterra, G2 (read Marvin’s G2 reviews.)

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How to Select the Right Customer Feedback Tool for Your Business

Now that you’re acquainted with the various tools for customer feedback, it’s time to make a choice. Run through this helpful list to compare functionality across tools:

  • Data aggregation & storage: Customer feedback platforms must facilitate data collection from multiple customer touch points. Software must store files in an insights repository. Look for compatibility with various formats, including documents, images, audio & video recordings.
  • Integrations: Tools must facilitate data exchange between apps you love to use. Choose a platform that integrates seamlessly with your existing tool stack. Link it to CRM, project management, marketing suites, and design software. 
  • Automation: Collect user feedback automatically and conduct a preliminary analysis of your data. Create, customize, and distribute surveys for customers. Analyze thousands of responses in minutes. Operationalize tedious tasks from your workflow.
  • Data analytics: Leverage customer feedback analytics software for quantitative and qualitative data. Look for tools with advanced capabilities, such as sentiment analysis. Look for easy data tagging features coupled with in-depth reporting functionality.
  • Security: Protecting sensitive user data is a big concern. Make sure your tool complies with local data security guidelines.
    Pro tip: If a tool’s website doesn’t mention anything about its compliances, they probably don’t have any.
  • User-friendliness: Ensure the application’s UI is easy-to-navigate. How easy is it to share data across the company? A shallow learning curve helps expedite team member onboarding. That’s less time learning the ropes and more spent on analysis.
  • Support: Does the platform have helpful resources for when you run into a problem? How responsive is their customer service team? Read user reviews on G2 or Capterra for #unfiltered user interactions with an app.

Want a tool that does it all? Give Marvin a spin today to see how it simplifies every stage of the feedback loop. Book your free demo now.

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Challenges in Implementing Customer Feedback Solutions

Despite the numerous benefits of customer feedback management solutions, they have some downsides. Watch out for these challenges you’ll inevitably run into at some point:

  • Lack of feedback: Sometimes, people don’t share their feedback. This can be due to poor choice of feedback channel or low response rates. Make it convenient and easy for users to share feedback. Don’t overwhelm them with a barrage of questions.
  • Feedback overload: Companies inundated with feedback have more data than they can handle. Categorizing data is an insurmountable task, and poor inferences and decisions follow. Not to mention wasting precious resources in the process.
  • No processes in place: Feedback collected from multiple channels can be tough to consolidate and analyze. Without a feedback strategy and management system, deriving actionable insights becomes increasingly difficult. Use a research roadmap.
  • Low-quality data: Asking the wrong questions or using the wrong format results in poor output. Users often provide answers that aren’t the truth. Unstructured feedback without context is tough to analyze. Sift through garbage to get actionable insights.
  • Feedback handling competency: Who’s handling the feedback synthesis and analysis? Are they skilled at collecting, analyzing, and acting on feedback? This involves a combination of technical and soft skills. Use training to educate peers.
  • Communication barriers: Businesses cater to a diverse global customer base. Cultural and language barriers result in ineffective communication and misunderstandings. Become sensitive to different cultures and backgrounds.
  • (Lack of) digitization: Manual, archaic feedback collection involves digitizing data to make sense of it. Data entry consumes lots of resources and isn’t error-free. Further, a lack of integrations with other applications prevents data consolidation.
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Best Practices for Using a Customer Feedback Solution

Follow these steps to get the most out of your custom feedback management platform:

  1. Evaluate existing processes: What are your current methods and channels for collecting feedback? What areas of the feedback collection process can you improve? How will feedback management software help?
  2. Set clear objectives: What do you want to achieve with your feedback tool? Are you looking to increase customer loyalty, improve the product, or remove roadblocks? Tailor the feedback collection process to meet your goals.
  3. Collect feedback from multiple sources: Focusing on a few channels gives you a limited view of the customer experience. Understand your audience and what channels are most important to them.
  4. Analyze feedback: Use your customer feedback analysis tool to garner insights. Here’s how:
    1. Aggregate all feedback data into one tool (Marvin, for example). 
    2. Categorize data into qualitative vs. quantitative. Finally, sort unstructured feedback into themes or codes.
  5. Act: Turning feedback into action grows your business and brand. Prioritize feedback based on the frequency of issues and impact on user experience. Consider user grievances and evaluate their importance to the business. Evaluate whether the feedback is implementable and actionable.
  6. Close the loop: Follow up regularly with your customers. Keep them informed of the changes you’re making. Monitor your feedback channels and responses to product updates closely.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Let’s address common questions about software for customer feedback:

How Do I Measure the Success of My Customer Feedback Tool?

Longitudinal studies track commonly used metrics over time. Helping you evaluate the success of a customer feedback tool. Here are a few to get started:

MetricDescription
CSAT (customer satisfaction) scoreHow happy are users with a product? 
CES (customer effort score)Evaluate the difficulty of carrying out a task.
NPS (net promoter score)Customer loyalty. Will they recommend the product to others? 
In-app ratingsCapture data in real time without redirecting users. 
Customer reviewsUnsolicited reviews and solicited customer testimonials.
Bug reportsWhere do users encounter roadblocks or usability issues?
Feature requestsWhat features do people most want to see in a product?

Discover more metrics in our exploration of AI in UX analytics

Can Customer Feedback Tools Help Improve Employee Satisfaction?

Companies can use feedback tools to look inward and solicit feedback from employees. They can gather data from any internal stakeholders.

Actively involving them in the feedback loop helps drive employee engagement. This creates a culture of open communication and continuous improvement. All leading to improved employee satisfaction.

What Are the Costs Associated with Implementing Customer Feedback Tools?

From our list above, tools range from free ($0) to hundreds of dollars for a monthly subscription.

It all depends on the functionality you’re looking for. Prioritize features from our checklist above and evaluate tools based on your requirements. Remember to take advantage of freemium versions and free trials. Try before you buy.

Factor in additional one-time expenses. These include implementation costs, operational costs, and project-related costs.

How Often Should I Collect Customer Feedback?

As often as possible!

Collecting feedback regularly helps teams identify new trends and alerts them to pressing issues. It shows customers you’re paying attention to what they say.

Your frequency of the feedback loop depends on the research objectives and the organization’s strategic goals. A short usability test may require only feedback before and after making product changes. Testing customer satisfaction is a longitudinal study without an end.

Remember to balance quantity with quality, though.

Conclusion – Customer Feedback Software

Customer feedback helps designers create products that improve users’ lives.

Teams capture user behaviors and attitudes towards their products. Are they deriving value from a product? What are their grievances? Without feedback, you run the risk of customers switching over to competitors. 

Companies who act on user feedback have the right intentions. They need the right software to match. 

A tool that effortlessly collates feedback from various data sources. One capable of housing both quantitative and qualitative data in any file format you throw at it. Most importantly, your customer feedback management solution must facilitate seamless, rapid data analysis.

Create a free account with Marvin—the one-stop shop for all your customer feedback.

Krish Arora leverages his experience as a finance professional to turn data into insights. A passionate writer with a strong appreciation for language, Krish crafts compelling stories with numbers and words to elevate the practice of user research.

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