Asking for customer feedback is only one piece of the puzzle. You can’t forget to take action and improve your business based on what you learn from feedback and your own observations.
My business uses a mailbox service for our post office box. The other day a publisher sent me a book to review. I took the “you have a package” card from my mailbox and handed it to the girl behind the counter.
She searched diligently for my package but couldn’t find it. She pulled in the manager to look for it as well. Neither was successful.
Since I didn’t have any information about the sender, package, or courier service, I couldn’t jump over the counter and find it myself.
At the time, the staff didn’t really know what to do with me. I said I would contact the sender and get some details on the package.
A few days later, we got a call from the mailbox service that my package had been located.
When I went to pick it up, I asked what had happened. She told me that they were implementing a new logging system to prevent accidents like this from happening again. In so doing, they located my package at the bottom of a stack of boxes.
Don’t Let It Happen Again
While the initial confusion of my lost package was disturbing, the mailbox store recovered nicely. The key lesson learned is that they realized the mistake and implemented a new process to prevent the same issue from happening again.
Everyone makes mistakes. Your business will too. Great companies learn from their mistakes, identify the problem, and change their process to prevent recurrences of the same problem.
Inefficient companies are plagued by the same issues over and over again. Customers will tire of such incompetence over time and move on to do business with the company that does learn from its mistakes.
Don’t worry that you have to have a complex solution to help your business and employees learn from their mistakes. Put a system in place to learn and improve your business. This can even be a simple notebook for capturing opportunities.