What Not To Do With Customer Feedback

A lot of us are giving lip service to customer feedback—we seek it out and accept it, and then we do nothing with it. And yet constructive criticism is how we evolve, in life as well as business.

We need to use the information, not throw it into the Raiders of the Lost Ark vault and forget about it. That only stagnates us. We all need to take our hits, learn from them and get better precisely because of them.

The important thing is not to ignore the negative reviews and feedback but to be ready to deal with them. Often, how we respond to complaints and negative feedback can show the side of our business that does not get seen or talked about much: how we respond when things go wrong—Adrian Swinscoe

If something goes wrong, it’s not necessarily the problem people will remember, anyway, but how we react to it. (Especially little problems.) Once the problem goes away, people tend to move on.

And according to Swinscoe, the same goes for customer satisfaction surveys. The important thing is that we use the information to improve our business and boost the overall company brand.

Isn’t asking for someone’s opinion and then not doing anything substantial with it or not telling them what you are going to do following their input tantamount to not asking at all? Follow up and follow through seems to be where there is a real issue.

And what a good way to engage—by asking a customer their opinion, telling them we value their opinion and showing them we value their opinion by acting on it with a new product or update or fix.