Negative Feedback is Extremely Positive

by Joi Murugavell / Joi Design

Fact : you can’t please all your clients all the time, no matter how good your customer service is, at some point you will face a client who is not happy, don’t wait for them to tell you why, most people are ‘polite’ you have to ask.

Negative feedback is extremely positive, as it gives you great, (and not to mention free) insight into what you’re doing wrong and how to improve. Companies spend thousands of dollars on focus group studies and surveys, be open with your current clients, it really is the easiest way to help them help you.

We worked on a project where our client just didn’t seem to have ‘chemistry’ with us. We gave her special attention, all the while guessing what was wrong and how we could turn that frown upside down. At the end of the job, we sent out our little feedback form and found out why we didn’t quite ‘get along’ - our client was a technophobe. Absolutely disliked anything technical.

We called said client up and offered her 2 free hours of in-house show and tell. We had biscuits, coffee and went right through the basics of the internet, right from how searches are conducted on google, how she could choose to update her website in the future and a whole lot of other bits that were not connected directly to her website but rather a feel for how technology can really help.

We’ve since enjoyed a great relationship with our technophobe client, ever so often she sends us fantastic articles she’s found on google, last week it was a link to the best knock knock jokes :)

Be open to feedback, always thank anyone who has given you negative feedback and if possible let them know when you’ve made a change to correct the ‘problem’. Remember, its much easier for your clients to say nothing, those who take the time to tell you what you’re doing wrong deserve a big thank you.

The feedback process that’s worked for us
1. Our short electronic form works well. We’ve tried sending out an A4 printed sheet to be faxed back – that takes time so the response wasn’t great.

2. We’ve found that most people prefer filling out a form with ‘set questions’ rather than simply being asked what they thought of your service. It saves them time by providing a structure. Experiment with the form, ours started out long, we’ve since cut down on the number of questions, provided simple tick boxes and enjoyed a higher response.

3. Provide a space for a testimonial.

4. Send your feedback form a couple of days after a project has been completed. When we’ve sent it out a couple of weeks after, responses have been slow, people are busy and you will receive more detailed feedback when the project is still ‘fresh’ in their minds.

Remember not to take criticism personally. The goal here is to bump into wonderful ideas that will help you improve, not to please everyone. Many of us shy away from doing fantastic things for fear of criticism – time to embrace it.

Your quiet clients are far more dangerous than outspoken ones, quiet doesn’t mean ‘happy’ so create ways to make your clients comfortable enough to share their thoughts with you.

How to create a feedback form with Business Catalyst

Go to: Content > Tools > Webforms

1. Click on Add new

2. Name your new form and assign a workflow to it, if you want to be notified on email when someone fills out the form. Click Save.

3. Click on the 'forms' tab. Here you will find a general list of fields you could have on your form.

4. Next click on the 'fields' tab, here's where you start creating your feedback form. Give your field a name, choose a field type (radio button, dropdown menu et cetera). Keep adding to it, you will be able to change the sequence of your fields by clicking on the 'up and down' buttons later. Tick the mandatory box for fields that someone must fill in.Since its a feedback form, it's best not to make any field mandatory -you're asking for a 'favour' so be nice :)

5. Click the 'preview' tab to make sure your form is as you want it. If you're happy with the form, click on the 1-click insert tab (or HTML tab) to insert your new feedback form on your feedback page. Name the page approriately, ours is called /thankyou, it's best to keep it simple.

6. Don't wait - send it out to all your clients!