How to Make the Most of Customer Feedback

I was just reading an article in Inc magazine from a couple of year back on customer feedback and I liked what they shared.

I read this quote, "Every day, companies solicit feedback from customers, yet only a few translate that feedback into meaning. An even smaller fraction of companies actually take action or close the loop with the customer, to let them know their voice was heard," says Whitney Wood..."

How to Make the Most of Customer Feedback | Inc.com

This is so true. From comment cards and cash register receipts organizations often ask for feedback but rarely get it and when they do what do they do with it?

Feedback needs to be real time and actionable for it to have real value!

Transforming the way customers share feedback and how organizations use it!

Comment Card - Length Matters!

I'm going to skip the joke... it's too easy.

When it comes to feedback length is a critical factor.

No more comment cards!

A few years ago I stayed at a casino in Las Vegas and when I returned home I got a call and they said they wanted me to take a "Satisfaction Survey".  As a student of customer service and customer feedback I said sure.

After 20 minutes and them asking me way too many personal questions I ended the survey.

In all honesty it was not a satisfaction survey... it was a survey that marketing department had hijacked and turned into satisfaction, demographics and buying behavior.

I'm often asked how can we get our customers to provide feedback?  Make it easy to provide and make the survey brief.

A friend shared that he started taking a satisfaction survey online recently and after I while he noticed that it showed "50% Complete".  As soon as he noticed that he just logged off.

If you want to know about the customers experience limit your questions to the 5-10 that matter.  If you want to ask more than that organize a focus group or tell people that you are doing market research.

This is one place where shorter is better!

Transforming the way customers share feedback and how organizations use it!

Comment Card Tabulation

I just found this on a web site from a pizza place here in Boise, ID.

The Flying Pie is talking about their comment cards and how they got started.  It's a cute story but here is what I'd like to focus on today...

"We currently print over 25,000 comment cards a year. We post them to the walls of our restaurants, publish the words and pictures on our web site and in our menu’zine, respond to a couple dozen each week who request a response, and pour through them weekly, looking for energy we ought to be chasing or celebrating or improving."


I don't know about you but 25,000 comment cards is a lot of cards to read and try to get valuable customer feedback from.  The phrase "pour through them" to me sounds like medieval torture.


As a business owner or executive do you have time to diligently review 500 comment cards each week?  If you do review them how do you quantify them and spot trends?


This is a little pizza place in Boise, ID but this is what businesses across the country and around the world struggle with.  They put the cards out, they get some back... now what do they do with them?  Will you take 25,000 comment cards and enter each of them into Excel or a database program so you can use the data?


Not very many people would.


Customer feedback is so important and comment cards are such a terrible way to try to get feedback.


One more reason not to use comment cards in the morning!


Transforming the way customers share feedback and organizations use it!