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There has been a lot going on in terms of customer feedback lately.  Today, I thought I would share a little link love and give you a quick overview of what other experts have been writing about when it comes to “customer feedback”

Customer Feedback Listening Posts: In my previous post about customer research trends, I mentioned that collecting feedback has gone far beyond the traditional phone, paper and even online surveys.  In this article, Jeff Henning does a terrific job of drilling down into several different customer feedback channels that you can use.

Expand Customer Feedback Ahead of Product Launch: Why is it that so many of us product development people feel like it’s easier to think about what the customer wants instead of just asking?  Morey Stettner has the right idea in this article.  Ask the customer these three simple questions: What is the problem?  What kind of product or service would you like to have?  What else?  The point here isn’t to be sophisticated, but to stop and take advantage of an opportunity to involve your customer in designing their next product or service.

Capitalizing on Customer Feedback – Creating Measurable Value from Voice of the Customer:  The Allegiance Blog has a newly issued white paper that covers new ways to think about customer feedback, top customer feedback strategies, four principles to realizing value from your voice of the customer research.  Download that one.

7 Tips for Getting Customer Feedback: You think you’ve got them all covered, but this is a great little checklist that you can use to see if you’re forgetting any of these handy customer feedback collection methods.

For Genuine Customer Insights, Go Beyond the Research:  More terrific ideas on ways and methods to gather insightful research without breaking the bank.

Recall Woes Prompt Toyota to Improve Customer Feedback Loop: Toyota has spent years building its reputation for quality and the last few months of quality issues and recalls leave them in a delicate position.  How will they use customer research and feedback to come back?

Well, I hope that you enjoyed this list of customer feedback articles.  Do you have articles you’d like to recommend, send them over and we’ll compile them to share with everyone.

Let’s face it. Businesses and the left brained among us thrive on what can be measured.  Social Media, which can be wildly effective, can also be difficult to measure.  Social Media is about reaching the masses and leveraging networks.  Think of your Social Media strategy as you would paying for advertising for television. There is a huge potential to reach everyone, but the only way to truly know the effectiveness of a campaign is ultimately how many people respond to the message.

Here are three ways we can measure the success of a Social Media Campaign: Response, Reach, and Revenue

Response
An easy way to know if your message is attractive with an audience is by the response. Does your content resonate and inspire people to action? Are people responding directly to you in Social Media? Have you made room for them to respond? Are people walking in your door and visiting your site? If not, you may need to research the needs of your demographic and restructure your approach. Remember, that Social Media is not a lecture, it’s a conversation. Customers want interaction. The more you respond directly and share content that resonates, you’ll see an increase in your effectiveness.

Reach
Is anyone sharing your content?  Do people find your message and offerings valuable enough to share with the people they care about?  Twitter and Facebook have awesome sharing functionality. If no one is sharing your message, then your efforts are not bearing fruit.  Be sure that your content is attractive to a diverse audience, or if you have a select niche, be sure that you’ve created interesting content to share. It could be that you’re not connected to the right audience or need to tweak your communications. Keep the posts brief, interesting and provide links that can easily be shared.

Revenue
We all know that this is the BIG one. Ultimately, we need to see an increase in revenue. Response and reach can get us there. A good social media strategy will have people congregating around your content and buying your goods and services.  Website traffic, people coming into your business and hiring you for consulting are good measures.  Make sure that at the end of your social media breadcrumb trail, people have a clear call to action so they know what’s needed from them.

By beginning with the end and setting goals around Response, Reach and Revenue, you can build a Social Media Strategy that takes your business to the next level!

About the Author: If you’ve ever wondered how you’re going to build your brand using social media, then pay attention to our our guest columnist today. Staci J. Shelton is a social media expert and blogger who specializes in building and maximizing online relationships

With over 100,000 apps the popularity of iPhones is ever on the rise. Thus, it made sense to develop an iPhone IdeaScale Widget…

More info:

• IdeaScale iphone Widget: http://blog.ideascale.com

Ultimately, yes? But, that’s rare, isn’t it?

If the incentives are there, if the change answers 3 questions from the perspective of those whose behavior is meant to change then…yes, maybe.

Those 3 questions are:

* What’s in it for me?

* Why should I care?

* Why should I believe?

Watch this video. Do you think it’s inspiring? (Hint: I did. But that’s just me. What’s your thoughts?) See if the solution it presents answers those 3 questions. (Hint: I did. But, that’s just me…)

Link and more on this story at Innovation in Practice.

About the author: Zane Safrit’s passion is small business and the operations excellence required to deliver a product that creates word-of-mouth, customer referrals and instills pride in those whose passion created it. He previously served as CEO of a small business. Zane’s blog can be found at Zane Safrit.

Cash-Flow. The number one KPI for social media’s results is cash-flow.  Does it increase or decrease when you use social media?

Your company is in the business of offering products and services. For money. Your money to produce and deliver.  Your customers’ money to purchase.

That dynamic, the inflow and outflow of cash, tells a company’s story and foreshadows its destiny.  Any company survives and remains master of its destiny based on how much positive cash-flow it generates from that dynamic.

If you’re fans/members/followers are not buying then be honest with yourself: They are not customers of your company. Not being customers, they are not engaged with your company.  No, seriously. It is cash-flow.

They may be customers of your marketing department or your social media agency’s efforts (community forum, widgets, cartoons/videos, profile personalization options). but they are not your customers. They may be fans of your community manager’s wit, each other’s wit and knowledge. But they are not your customers. They remain merely…fans/members/followers of someone’s social media expertise.

They are only your customers if they become fully engaged with your company. Fully engaged means they open their pocketbook/creditcard/checkbook to you, for your products and services.  The checkbook meets the hand is the equivalent of the rubber meets the road. It is the reality check in every conversation in the marketplace.

A customer’s purchase is the most meaningful KPI reciprocates your trust in them. That trust was first signaled by you when you invested your cash and knowledge and time and energy in creating a product or service to meet their needs. Their purchase reciprocates that trust. It shows they are fully engaged, truly believe, your message.

I am as big a fan of social media’s potential in creating community, exchanging ideas, building connections, conversation….as anyone. I love meaning and purpose as much as the next person. And, social media may be the most efficient means to communicate, evangelize, globalize, meaning and purpose.

But even altruistic purposes need cash-flows in the form of donations to survive, mature and translate that passion into meaningful action.

There are businesses who design, create and host cocktail parties.  Caterers, cooks, DJs, beverage vending companies, facilities where everyone can gather. Their business is creating fun events. But no one confuses badges worn, hands stamped or  dances danced as meaningful to anyone but the party vendor and the attendees. If the party doesn’t translate into deals, purchases and cash-flowed…back to the company, ultimately that cocktail party is irrelevant. Fun, sure. Just like the next one.

But, the KPIs of conversations and friends/followers/fans offer a business the meaningful equivalent of a “Let’s do lunch…” farewell at a cocktail party. And social media is the globe’s always open digital cocktail party.

There are many other KPIs for social media’s performance. Here is a list of 35 KPIs that measure engagement by Chris Lake. I like the list. I like the post, a lot. I like that he started the conversation off with a courteous  nod to the importance of revenues. And he acknowledges with one sentence that you want people to buy your products….But, then he quickly rushes past it to the really important stuff….like widgets and settings, followers, friends and settings. To show their relative importance he bolded their itemized listings. And if Casey and I were to sit down and talk together, have a conversation, we’d be on the same page with differences amounting to tiny shades of grey.

Ultimately, they are relevant only with a positive impact on an organization’s cash-flow. The power of social media is done a disservice when lists of KPIs omit cash-flow.  The irony is obvious. The resource that allows transparent conversation, to speak and listen, to your customers in their language, is touted with metrics that fail to speak the language of their ultimate customer: the CEO and CFO. These are the decision-makers for social media’s use.

Maybe this is harsh. Maybe. Whatever. Get over it. Here’s why. It is a disservice to the business community, especially the small business community. Social media has the power to level the playing field for small business.  It offers an incredibly cost-efficient means to communicate the advantages of an unique brand to a global audience. Its cost-effectiveness comes from the company’s customers supplanting traditional, and often ineffective, but always expensive forms of advertising. They supplant them with their word-of-mouth accelerated with the tools of social media.  Their conversations translate into higher sales, lower marketing costs, more referrals and lower customer churn, higher conversion rates and lower sales cycles.

And it is a disservice to your own agency or department. You have found and mastered a powerful resource for your client or company.  It is a resource that can help them reach their goals and in doing so help you reach your goals.

Your shared success will be translated and reported in the ultimate KPI that measures engagement from a company’s employees and customers: cash-flow.

My last article about changing rating scales prompted this e-mail from a reader.

Over many years of surveying customers and guests I have had to grapple many times with changing methodology: not just changing scales but in changing data collection methods.  Now, more than ever, many clients are thinking about, if not already, switching to data collection through email surveys and internet based surveying.  As the saying goes “Everyone else is doing it so we should too”.

What faces us is the question of how to explain the differences in scores achieved by the surveying methods. For example, having conducted large scale guest satisfaction surveys across many European countries using intercept surveying we must now convert our collection methods to internet services.  Using the exact same questionnaire but administering the survey by email we witness an average drop in satisfaction rating of 9-10% across the board.  For companies firmly focused on customer satisfaction this drop is very disconcerting.

Yes, the “halo effect” may explain some of the change but a drop of 10%?  Does primacy and recency affect the scores but by how much?  Having intercepted the guest before leaving the premises we now mail them a day or two later and get the survey completed sometimes up to 5 to 7 days later.  Does the level of satisfaction just drop off as time passes?

In previous years we have tested the change in methodology between face to face, postal and telephone interview and can clearly see that the face to face scores are always the highest, not only because we set the parameters on how respondents can be selected and can to some extent control all the environmental variables, but once we lose this control the data changes substantially.

I just want to pose the question to other interested marketers  and ask how they understand this variance in scores, if in evidence and how best can it be explained.

– Madeleine O’Carroll, consultant researcher working in the EMEA region, specialising in hospitality research.

I’ve done some looking on the internet, but haven’t found a lot of information on this topic.  What’s been your experience?  Does anyone have resource or advice for Madeleine?  Leave a comment here or send me any links or resources that you have and I will post them.

Better yet – if you’ve had experience on this and would like to send a guest post on this topic – please e-mail it to me ivana@thirdforce.net and I will post it.  Be sure to include a one-sentence bio and I link where I can send our readers for more information about you and your organization.

I listened in on a recent Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) webinar in which John Moore, of Brand Autopsy stated:

Social Media helps small businesses seem big and big businesses act small

Knowing the psychographics of your customers can help you not just act small but be small and have one to one level conversations with them.  This is exactly what will ignite positive word of mouth for your business!

According to Forrester Research, 94% of consumers trust Word of Mouth and 84% of business buyers say Word of Mouth has the greatest influence over their purchase decisions, far surpassing any form of paid media. Nielsen, the market research firm, recently called Word of Mouth “the world’s most powerful sales tool.”  Social media only amplifies word of mouth.

What information helps big business create profitable small talk?

• Knowing your client’s contact sphere

Get to know where they spend time.  It could be with an organization. It could be within an industry specific association.  It could be where they find the latest information for their profession.  Knowing your client’s associations, will help you understand the current conversations they’re participating in and what matters to them.

If you would like to jump in on the conversations, be in the know and genuinely care what’s new for your client’s or what’s causing the most pain – find out their associations and set up a Google alert to give you updates on the latest information posted to the web.

Now, you can engage your clients about what’s on their mind, engages them and incites action.

• Know your client’s circle of influence

Do you know who they influence or impact?  It could be students, people they mentor or people they’ve helped.  Often when you make a difference in the life of someone, they feel such tremendous gratitude.  This gratitude influence them to assist in a way that makes them feel that there’s balance between what you received and what you eventually give them.

Know who they are “the best customers” for. If you follow the checkbook, you’ll see who your clients directly influence through their livelihood.  This “food chain” can reveal to you who your client’s influence.

What a tremendous way to engage in one-to-one conversations that are meaningful and presented in a manner that is comfortable and familiar to them.

Find out:

• What they like to read
• Where they spend their lunchtime
• Are they members of:
  • Social service organizations
  • Industry associations
  • Reunion event or educational
  • Volunteer organization

Author: Maria Elena Duron | chief buzz officer, speaker and coach focused on helping you move, touch and inspire others to action and speak positively on your behalf at buzz2bucks | word of mouth firm