hello this is my case study
Fear of Feedback
The biggest obstacle to knowing what customers really think about us is fear. We fear they’ll tell us our product or service stinks, that we are horrible people, and that we should never have set foot on earth.
Danica a marketing manager for a midsized technology firm read this opening paragraph and nodded. That’s the truth she thought. We have got to get more proactive about getting and using good feedback. Too many of my people are afraid of feedback. They seem to be tuning out that type of painful feedback and we need it if we are ever going to grow this business.
Danica was a good amateur golfer and she knew the value of coaching. Her game had improved dramatically since she had hired a coach, Roy a rather crusty fellow who was quick to point out when she was doing something wrong. Sometimes Roy could be annoying – such a stickler for detail – but he had helped her improve her game to a single digit handicap. Danica thought, maybe I need to look at feedback from customers in the same way: occasionally painful, but almost always useful.
The article she was reading described an Australian beer company, Blowfly, that has integrated customer feedback into its company’s decision – making process by asking customer “shareholders” to determine marketing plans, product names, street-team strategies, and operational decisions usually made by executive committees. In many ways, Blowfly has turned ownership of the company over to customers. This has caused so much positive word of mouth that the company – even before it was a year old – landed a hefty North American distribution deal with hip grocer Trader Joe’s.
Another example described toy retailer Build-a-Bear Workshop that sends out weekly surveys to its database of 6 million customers asking them to rate their recent store experience, including the cleanliness of the bathrooms! Company founder Maxine Clark attributes her company’s success – it has grown to 113 stores in five years doing $200 million in revenue – to its intense focus on gathering customer feedback.
Wow, she thought. That’s what I want to see happen in my company. We have to get more proactive about gathering customer feedback. Waiting for it to arrive on its own is fraught with peril. To know what customers are thinking, we must ask.
Questions:
- 1. How is feedback like coaching?
- 2. Assuming that most of Danica’s customers communicate with the company is only via Internet or phone, what steps can she take to enhance feedback gathering? Be specific about a plan of action.
- 3. What strategies might the company implement to gather more feedback from customers?
