Focal Point recently had the opportunity to get some open-ended qualitative feedback from a group of our clients and prospects.

As is often the case, the positive responses are extremely gratifying. On the flip side, it stings to hear about anything we are doing wrong in someone’s eyes.

When we get negative feedback of any caliber, it’s really tempting to take it personally or invent some rationalization to discount it altogether. However, this sort of rationalization ignores a basic truth: Most unhappy customers won’t bother to tell you what they’re unhappy about. More often, they simply stop buying from you. So in a very real way, negative reviews are hugely beneficial, if we can set our pride aside and try to understand how someone came to have such an opinion about our business. 

In our case, the only negative response we received came from 3-4 respondents, suggesting that we were being too wordy in some instances. That’s practical, useful information that we can use to better serve our clients in the future, and despite my initial discomfort, I’m really happy to hear about ways we can improve.

It’s important to remember that if someone is unhappy with your business, they are unhappy whether we hear about it or not.

Positive online reviews are beneficial for any business-to-consumer company. For that reason alone, you should be asking your clients to give you feedback. To take it a step further, though, you should be asking for reviews because they give you the opportunity to improve. Furthermore, being responsive to complaints online and showing that you are willing to have a dialogue to address customer concerns - that’s even more impressive to a potential client. 

If you would like to improve your consistency in requesting online reviews, we can help. We create professional looking e-mails like the examples below and then schedule them to be sent once per month. This is a simple and efficient way to get feedback from your clients. Contact me today for more information.