“Feedback is the breakfast of champions”.
Personally, we prefer a bacon butty, or perhaps a bowl of granola on a well-behaved day. But the guy who said it – a hugely successful author, speaker and businessman – makes a very good point. If you want to make it big in this life, you need feedback. And you need it daily.
Yikes. Here’s why.
When you’re cooking, you don’t think twice of asking your partner to sample a spoonful of your latest creation. ‘More garlic? Does it need another five minutes?’. What you’re doing is effectively shaping the perfect product, in the same way that all the big players – from Kellogg’s to Apple – will do. They don’t wait until their new release is on the shelves before they invite criticism. Their product is the result of a long process of comment, and all the better for it, too. And, importantly, the person you asked for their views becomes emotionally invested. And that breeds loyalty.
Even if you genuinely have created a brilliant product or service, it doesn’t mean that your work is over. As markets become crowded and margins ever more narrow, the best way to stand out from the crowd isn’t necessarily a cheaper price, or a slicker product, but providing a customer experience that sticks in the mind. It doesn’t matter how brilliant you think your company is. You have to ask your customers how memorable – or not – you were.
Inviting feedback will help you see very quickly how happy your customers are with you, your product, or services. Measure these with a ratings system and you’ll accurately track how customer satisfaction is performing over time. Notice an improvement? Okay, what process did you change? Notice a dip? Hm, maybe that recipe tweak wasn’t such a great idea. It gives you long-term insight. Invaluable.
Received some rotten feedback? Make immediate contact with the peeved customer and resolve the issue face to face. Acting promptly on poor feedback can win back the trust of a paying customer before they leave you forever, and – crucially – before they hit social media with their tale. The benefits are three-fold. You minimise or negate bad publicity, retain existing customers, and get better insight into what new ones might want, too.
Every good company earns fans. And fans are with their weight in gold. Receive consistently good feedback from a customer and you know – beyond doubt – that you’re well within your rights to ask for a testimonial. Testimonials are persuasive, attractive, and even more powerful than an old-fashioned word-of-mouth recommendation. Add them to your website (with permission, of course) and you’ve got both credibility and global reach, too.
At isCompliant, we know that asking for feedback, and then making time to act on it, can be difficult when there’s so much else on. That’s why we’ve built a module just for feedback into isCompliant so you don’t need to remember – the system will prompt you to do it. Feedback comes with a form template you can issue to your customers to find out exactly how they rate you. You can log any comments, complaints or compliments, and create actions to move things forward where needed. All of a sudden, you’re acting on feedback and improving procedures as you go. Awesome.
Now, the burning question. Bacon butty or granola?
Serious about managing feedback? Take a look at our isCompliant Module.
Get your free isCompliant trial here: https://www.iscompliant.com/free-trial
Tags: clients, complaints, continual improvement, customer feedback, customer satisfaction, customers, feedback, improvement, ISO 9001, problem resolution
