Short answer: if a customer has told you, shown you or written somewhere public how it went, that is feedback. Good, bad or lukewarm, it all counts, and most small businesses collect far more of it than they write down. The rest of this page is about what it looks like on a normal Tuesday behind a counter or in a van.
What is customer feedback? (the short answer)
Customer feedback is the information, opinions, comments, ratings or suggestions customers share about dealing with you.
Someone says “lovely, thanks” as they pay. That is feedback. Someone leaves a one-line complaint on your Facebook page. Also feedback. Someone just stops coming. That counts too, and it is the quietest and most frustrating kind, because nobody tells you why.
Customer feedback in simple words, with examples
Strip the jargon away and feedback is customers telling you how it went. You do not need software or a dashboard to get it.
Think about what actually reaches a small business in a week:
- A regular at the till says the flat whites have been better lately.
- A text comes in asking whether you could start doing earlier appointments.
- An email says the plumber was tidy and on time, but the quote took ages to arrive.
- Someone writes a Google review.
- Someone phones up cross about a booking mix-up.
It is not always words, either. A regular who orders the same thing every week is telling you something. So is the person who sends a dish back, or the client who rebooks before they leave the chair.
The four main types of customer feedback
There is no official standard for this. The grouping below is our own, a plain way of sorting what a cafe, salon or tradesperson receives. Use it if it helps.
- Direct, solicited feedback. You asked for it: a short survey, or a simple “how was everything?” at the till.
- Unsolicited feedback. Nobody asked, they just told you: messages, complaints, a surprise compliment.
- Indirect or observed feedback. What customers do rather than say: repeat visits, returns, cancellations, the question everyone keeps asking.
- Public reviews. Feedback posted in the open on Google, Trustpilot, Tripadvisor or Facebook, where everyone can read it.
The edges overlap. A review can be unsolicited if the customer thought of it themselves, or solicited if you asked. Do not worry about where exactly each one sits.
Solicited and unsolicited feedback
The split that matters most day to day is whether you asked.
Solicited feedback is the kind you go looking for, and its strength is that you choose the question. If you want to know whether the wait put people off, ask about the wait instead of hoping someone mentions it. A short private survey is the usual way: a handful of questions, sent to every customer, so you learn what to fix.
Unsolicited feedback arrives on the customer’s terms. It is often blunter, sometimes kinder than you expect, and usually about whatever mattered most to that person in that moment. A customer who bothers to complain unprompted is often pointing at something fixable.
You want both. Solicited feedback answers the questions you thought to ask; unsolicited feedback tells you about the things you never thought to ask.
Where online reviews fit among customer feedback
Reviews are one slice of customer feedback. A Google review is feedback that happens to be public, written for other people as much as for you.
That public part changes how it works. A comment at the till stays between the two of you. A review is read by the next person deciding whether to book, so it does a second job as a signal to future customers.
Reviews rarely give you the whole picture, though. A review tells you how someone felt overall; it seldom explains why the quote was slow or which part of the appointment dragged. For that detail you usually need the private kind. Think of reviews as the shop window and private feedback as the workshop out the back. Both need looking after.
Public and private feedback: keep them honest
This is the part to get right.
Private feedback must be offered to every customer alike. You cannot use a private survey as a filter, sending happy customers on to leave a public review and quietly steering unhappy ones away. This is called review gating, and it is not allowed.
Google’s own policy says merchants must not “discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”. It also bans offering incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods in exchange for a review, and says businesses should not pressure customers to leave reviews on the premises or ask for specific content. What Google does allow is asking customers to share a genuine experience, without incentives and without trying to influence the rating or the words.
UK law also covers fake and incentivised reviews; our guide to fake reviews and UK law explains what applies. For the practical side, see how to ask for an honest review and the rules for asking for Google reviews.
The simple version: ask everyone the same way, take what comes back, and do not sort people first. It can feel slower. It is also the only way the feedback means anything.
What to do with feedback once you have it
Collecting feedback is the easy half. Then:
- Write it down. A notebook by the till or a note on your phone is enough. Feedback you do not record gets forgotten by Friday.
- Look for repeats. One comment is an opinion; the same comment three times is a pattern worth acting on.
- Fix what you can. Start with the cheap, quick changes.
- Close the loop. If a customer raised something and you fixed it, tell them.
- Reply to public reviews. Politely, specifically and without getting defensive, to the good ones as well as the bad. For the hard ones, see how to respond to negative Google reviews.
Which free tool helps
For private feedback, start with the customer feedback survey guide, which keeps the questions short and separate from any review request.
For public feedback, the free review reply writer gives you short reply drafts to edit and post yourself. It is free and needs no account.
Questions people ask
Can you give me an example of customer feedback?
A customer telling you at the till that the new opening hours suit them, a text asking if you do evenings, a complaint about a booking mix-up, or a Google review. All of them count.
What are the four main types of customer feedback?
There is no official list. A plain grouping that works for a small business is: feedback you ask for (surveys, asking at the till), feedback nobody asked for (messages, complaints), what customers do (repeat visits, returns, what they keep asking about), and public reviews.
What is feedback in simple words?
Customers telling you how it went when they dealt with you, through what they say, the ratings they give or what they do next.
Is a Google review customer feedback?
Yes. A Google review is public customer feedback, written for you and for everyone who reads it afterwards.
What is the difference between customer feedback and a review?
A review is one kind of customer feedback, and it is public. Customer feedback is the wider category, including private messages, surveys, conversations and what customers do. Every review is feedback, but most feedback never becomes a review.