You have to Ask Customers What they Want

There are a number of ways to get the feedback from your customers that will cause you to serve them they way they want to be served. It is not my intention here to discuss how this feedback is best collected, but rather to impress the importance of going to the trouble to get it. Whether it is surveys, feedback forms, focus groups, or individual meetings with clients, the point is to listen to what your customers are saying and give them what they want!

You’ll find that most of your customers will be extremely candid and helpful in their feedback about your company. Customers gain absolutely no benefit in being hesitant to provide feedback. What they might be hesitant to do, however, is to spend an inordinate amount of time responding to surveys. So, make sure that you remember the importance of time when surveying your customers. Be brief, and be specific.

Also, you can expect a greater response with anonymous surveys. In the example above, my client used a combination of anonymous surveys along with a smaller focus group to confirm what was discovered in the first survey. This combination worked very well and led to significant improvement in service levels.