Great post, David. Thank you. This is advice many companies would benefit from. Reminds me of the story a collegue tells about her time at a very large [to remain unnamed] insurance firm who initiated a large customer feedback survey and when they'd sent out to ~1/4 of the customers, they handed the results to the training department. When the group there began implementing suggested changes into their materials (provide more detail when asked a question, for example) the survey team pushed back, saying the just didn't know who else to give the results to, not that they ought to be acted upon. When the training team pushed back on that, saying they could really help the customers now that they had the data, "why else would you ask, if you didn't want to know?" and all, no more surveys were sent out. No more data collected. So much for listening, or for learning, or for attempting to meet the customer's stated [let alone, implied] needs.
June 30, 2009 at 9:05pm by Marcia Conner
Great post, David. Thank you. This is advice many companies would benefit from. Reminds me of the story a collegue tells about her time at a very large [to remain unnamed] insurance firm who initiated a large customer feedback survey and when they'd sent out to ~1/4 of the customers, they handed the results to the training department. When the group there began implementing suggested changes into their materials (provide more detail when asked a question, for example) the survey team pushed back, saying the just didn't know who else to give the results to, not that they ought to be acted upon. When the training team pushed back on that, saying they could really help the customers now that they had the data, "why else would you ask, if you didn't want to know?" and all, no more surveys were sent out. No more data collected. So much for listening, or for learning, or for attempting to meet the customer's stated [let alone, implied] needs.
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Marcia Conner > www.marciaconner.com > @marciamarcia