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Feedback: Brain Food
for Growing Companies
By Sarah Eaton
Each month, we conduct a survey in our newsletter to generate feedback from our readers. We like to know your opinion. But, last month, not as many of you responded to the survey as usual.
The feedback that we got from last month's survey was, as always, valuable, but the shortage of responses told us something else: Our survey last month didn't drive you to want to answer it as much as some of those we've done in the past.
Looking at everything in a positive light is usually the cardinal rule for a successful business. But what happens when that outlook causes you to gaze at less-successful ventures through rose-colored glasses?
You miss something important. You miss out on the opportunity to learn from your missteps and strive for improvement.
With feedback you get that opportunity. You get the good, and you get the bad — that's what makes it so valuable. But first, you must gather the information. Here are four methods for amassing and analyzing feedback:
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Feedback Forms
Similar to a traditional survey, feedback forms allow customers more of a chance to expand on their thoughts. They contain more open-ended questions and permit participants to wander beyond the structure of more carefully formulated questions.
This method can yield surprises and tends to work best when seeking information from smaller, more concentrated groups.
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E-newsletter Tracking Results
Tracking results from e-newsletters, from open rates to click-through rates, can generate a wealth of information about a business' customers and prospects. Through careful tracking, customers' interests can be illuminated.
Just as with any complex situation, because there are so many variables involved, the data that issues from tracking can be somewhat easier to manipulate to reflect well on a business' strategic philosophies.
For that same reason of multiple variables and complexity, it is also easier to glean honest (and more complete) information.
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Blog Comments
Company blogs empower readers by allowing them to interact, anonymously if they choose, with opinions and announcements that come straight from a representative of the company. Readers can add their own comments to entries, or leave trackbacks to their own blog posts.
This form of feedback is highly individualized, since participation is optional.
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Surveys
Focus your survey's objective, keep the questions simple, make sure it flows in a logical order, pre-test it to make sure there aren't any glitches, and offer an incentive. (For more survey-making tips, see "Boosting Your Online Survey Responses" by Dana Meade and Paula Rivers.)
Because survey questions tend to have set answers from which a participant can choose, information in this format is most easily analyzed.
Gathering and assessing feedback can be invaluable to a growing company if a feedback analysis system is implemented.
Doing so can be as easy as stripping away any unsupported verbal explanation from the data, or insisting that each rationalization be followed by one from the opposing point of view.
It's important to remember to not attribute too much weight to any one piece of feedback. By using an aggregate of responses over time, true patterns are revealed.
Of course, no form of feedback is perfect in all situations, so adopting a method of combining all or several of the approaches for gathering information is best.
And as for our survey this month, we've done some additional research and re-thought our strategy to try to engage you. (Check it out. If you don't feel like answering it, hit me with some feedback: sarah.e@betuitive.com.)
Sarah Eaton is the List Manager for BeTuitive Marketing. She monitors the impact of interactive marketing — particularly e-newsletters and blogs — on the acquisition, retention and growth of customers. At BeTuitive, she provides guidance to customers on the best ways to test and improve response rates. Check out her blog, BeTuitive: Actionable Results, for the latest strategies in e-marketing.
Copyright © 2005 BeTuitive Marketing
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