Going back to the trust gap, we had already achieved the highest level of trust we could, because these parents trusted us with the well-being of their children. This makes it even more important for the experience gap to be nearly nonexistent. In a high level of trust relationship, you cannot afford gaps in either trust or experience, because you cannot usually gain it back once you have lost it.

Using an online service for the survey allowed us to create a quick database of all the results. The e-mail was sent out and we had a 95 percent response rate. Within 48 hours we sat down with the head of the school and the faculty with 45 pages of collected results—all feedback from current parents. Some of the information was pretty basic, like wanting more variety on the lunch menu. Some pointed to more serious issues for the children. There was also a lot of positive feedback, with stories of happy customers. The positive feedback is great for so many reasons. You can learn what’s working and also drum up testimonials for your business, which is always great for attracting new customers.

This is where you have the opportunity for engagement. You’ve got your clients’ attention, you have their ears, now you need to follow up. Just hearing what they have to tell you is the first step, but it can’t be the last. You may not change anything based on something one of your customers told you, but if you see something consistently coming up that you are not delivering, then you know you need to act.

After going through all the feedback from the school survey, we sat around a boardroom table and every single response was delegated to somebody to take responsibility for. We made sure that every person who had participated in the study was validated and knew that they had been heard. We also made sure that the participants were thanked for their time and knew that whatever the concern that the school was working hard to improve the quality of their service. By the following week, the school had followed up with every single parent.

Try sending these questions out to your list, whether they are customers or subscribers to your newsletter. The parents of students at the private school did not need any extra incentive for filling out the survey because they were investing a lot of money in the school and the service had a lot of value.

But in other kinds of circumstances, such as if you’re asking free subscribers of your newsletter about something, you may want to throw in a gift to thank them for their time. You can add an Amazon.com gift card or something that you can raffle off for people as a thank you. I did this with a list of mine and got 10,000 responses.⁹⁶

You can ask your list members what type of content they want to read. You could ask them what delivery methods they like for products. But most importantly, start by asking your current customers the “Stop Start Continue” questions. These questions will improve your business, keep you moving forward, and save you from losing customers. This engagement will enhance your relationship with satisfied customers.