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Brick No51: How to give and get great feedback
By Matt Weston, Friday 19 March 2004 Big companies treat customer feedback as if it's pointless white noise. They claim to welcome all customer feedback, but really it's just a ploy to look customer-centric. With feedback, small businesses always have the upper hand: -- Only small businesses can get genuinely close to their customers, staff or suppliers -- Big business feedback gets lost in layers of bureaucracy; lumbering giants just can't react to feedback quickly enough, even if they want to -- Feedback can help your small business understand, anticipate and evolve to fit changing customer needs -- Feedback is beneficial to both your customers and to your business -- And, if acted on, feedback can bring you and your customers even closer together business bricks is resolutely a feedback-driven newsletter. Your reader feedback inspires me to do what I do; it gives me fresh direction; new ideas for bricks; and tells me what works and what doesn't work. Without your feedback, I would operate in a vacuum. But asking for specific feedback on a frequent basis is the easy bit. For small businesses, our real edge comes not from how we get feedback from our customers, suppliers and team – but from how warmly we receive the feedback, and how we then react to it. Don't close the door on the most useful feedback Not all of the feedback you get will be sugar-coated. And small business owners can be very defensive when it comes to feedback, particularly if it's negative. As an entrepreneur, you put your heart and soul into your business. Negative feedback, however constructive, can feel like a very personal attack. But negative feedback, in many ways, is the most useful wake-up call you can ever receive. If your product or service isn't quite right, you mustn't bury your head in the sand and carry on regardless. I've worked with small business owners who claim to operate an 'open door policy' to customers and staff, but who, in truth, are only receptive to positive feedback. If you bite somebody's head off, it won't grow back. Eventually the sources of constructive feedback stop bothering. Customers stop writing letters and start to buy elsewhere. Staff leave for other jobs, and leave you with useless feedback from the Yes Men. How to give feedback Let's turn this brick on its end. Feedback is a two-way street. If you understand how to give great feedback, you're more likely to understand how to get it. Seth Godin wrote a great piece entitled 'How to Give Feedback' in last month's edition of Fast Company Part of getting good feedback is communicating to your customers, staff or suppliers (a) why you want their feedback and (b) what the benefit is for them. Godin offers three rules of great feedback: (1) No one cares about your opinion. What I want instead of your opinion is analysis (2) Say the right thing at the right time (3) If you have something nice to say, please say it business bricks feedback By way of an example, let's translate it to the feedback I receive from readers regarding business bricks. Without exception, all the feedback I receive has been inspirational. But the most useful, the crème de la crème of your feedback, has this in common: (1) It's analytical. "I didn't like your piece on the 80:20 rule" isn't anywhere near as useful as: ". . . Everything you said about Pareto Analysis is true except that you must also analyse what really happens if you withdraw those "poorly-contributing" 80% of product lines . . ." (2) It's relevant to a specific brick. The best feedback for me is feedback on specific bricks (and how they relate to your business or business idea). (3) It starts with a positive. If you can start off by telling me the thing you MOST like about business bricks (or a specific brick, or the website), then, in Seth Godin's words, "it puts you on the same side of the table as me". I'd also like to hear what you like LEAST about business bricks as well. Be brave, I can't bite from here! Feedback only works for small businesses. And it only works if you act on it. Tell your customers why feedback is beneficial, and help them understand what kind of feedback is most useful to you. Remember to sign up: back to top |
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