feedback rocks

no...i'm not talking about the distortion mastered by jimi hendrix...altho that does rock, for obvious reasons.

i'm talking about the response we've received from the survey i mentioned a week or so ago.

i am absolutely blown away by the level of participation we've seen so far. we have well above the average completion rate. and that totally kicks ass!

in addition, the majority of our clients were very generous with their comments, and their scoring of us.

as expected...we also got some feedback that was pretty stark...and not super happy.

now, we made a conscious decision to try to get a 360 degree view with this survey. so we sent to several folks, not just our primary contacts or business owners, at each organization. including someone did assume that person had a certain amount of contact with us...enough to actually give a valid response. but we wanted to make sure that the impression of us was consistent among the employees of our clients.

but we were not prepared for this...the number of owners and high-level direct contacts themselves who immediately completed the survey was absolutely astonishing.

we're talking about folks who are busy running their businesses, and who don't have a whole lot of time to spare.

but they took that 5 minutes to tell us what they thought of our efforts, and how we could improve.

and so we steeled ourselves to take the bad with the good.
because listening to only what we want to hear will put us in a bubble.

which is bad.
real bad.

if only because then we may tend to not communicate with clients as much, or as well. so...we consciously fight any withdrawal impulse.

so...now my question is...

do you have a mechanism for eliciting feedback from your clients?

if not...why not?

trust me when i say...the benefits you will get from seeing client responses are vast, almost to the point of never ending.

if you do have some kind of feedback method...great!

but what do you do with that feedback once you've gotten it? do you take the bad with the good...and realize that any response is better than no response?

because at least then...you know where you stand. and you can decide to take whatever action about the situation that you want.

but without it...you're just stumbling around in the dark.

disclaimer: i'm also posting this so that i will stop blabbing about it to everybody i know in the sbs community. cuz i know they're all getting sick of my prattling on about the survey.

so a quick sorry to all my buddies...you know who you are! :)