If you are like me who gets anxious about customer feedback. Let me tell you, it is perfectly okay. It is only human to not like anything that is painful or uncomfortable. Nobody likes negative feedback from clients and that is a fact.
But this must not sway you from cutting off communications with your customer. I found out the value in customer feedback and learned that as a business owner, one can never over-communicate with the clients.
Check out today’s episode of The Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast and learn how to scale your business in just five minutes a day!
Overview & Episode Content
- Should You Fear the Feedback From Clients?
- Save Clients Through Customer Feedback
- The Power of Open and Honest Communication in Action
- Communication With Clients Builds Trust
Should You Fear the Feedback From Clients?
In November of 2019, my general manager brought up the idea of an incentive program for all of our Virtual Systems Architects, and just a few weeks ago, it was finally implemented!
Now, this monthly incentive for our VSAs has three tiers with varying percentage of bonuses depending on their performance for that month.
If they did good, they would get a bonus. Now, if they did really well, their bonus would have a higher percentage. But if they did okay — just run-of-the-mill — then they would not get a bonus.
Part of this incentive system is sending out a very short form to all of my clients and asking them to fill it out with their feedback.
Now, with the feedback from the clients comes the fear that some of them are going to feel like they have better things to do than fill up the monthly survey.
And the other fear is about getting negative feedback.
You might notice how focused I am on the negative here and not paying attention to the good stuff. I apologize for that but it is just part of being human — we do not like pain. Usually, pain outweighs the pleasure.
The bottom line here is I was scared of what was going to happen but I totally supported my general manager.
I told him, “Go for it! It is your idea, it sounds great, just do it.”
Saving Clients Through Customer Feedback
I totally supported my General Manager’s idea one hundred percent but as soon as the rest of my core team — my account managers — started sending those emails, my heart started racing!
It got me so anxious! But these are the moments where I am very thankful to have a team behind me. It allowed me to just totally ignore the things that would have me worried. I did not have to worry too much if we did well, or which things we need to improve, and a million other things.
In the end, most of it was cool. Because of those monthly surveys from our clients, we got a lot of good feedback. It was amazing!
But, probably the most interesting thing of all this was how I thought I had two of the happiest customers ever. As it turned out, these two customers had reservations about our services after all.
Because we reached out and asked for their feedback, we were able to reestablish our communications and ultimately saved two clients from leaving our services. If we had not reached out, then they probably would have just left and we would have ended up losing two valuable clients.
The Power of Open and Honest Communication in Action
One of these two clients in question had a process that was not really working well. So, they were thinking about hiring someone in-house.
The second client had one of our VSAs working 7 days a week full-time at six hours a day. It got me wondering how the schedule was even approved.
You may be thinking that six hours a day is not bad. But think about it for one minute. Your next day off would be a holiday! So, let’s say you had your days off in January. So, your next day off won’t be until February. A person is working for months straight every day.
And yes, they work from home but it still does not feel right. And the customer was wondering why things were starting to decline. Of course, the working schedule was most probably the reason!
These were two customers that I thought were extremely happy but they had concerns after all. And those concerns would not have come to the forefront had it not been for that initial communication with my core team.
Essentially, we ended up saving two customers that would have otherwise left. And not only that, it allowed us to better serve the other customers. That would then allow them to grow their business and, in turn, allow them to get more VSAs!
This open communication is very powerful. If I get anything negative, I always thank the customer, “Hey thanks for the open and honest communication.”
And that’s a huge thing – to be honest, and open with your clients.
Communication With Clients Builds Trust
When you shut off communication with your clients — or with family and friends in general — it is like a blocked sewer. Right off the bat, it is probably not that big of a deal but eventually, all the poo-poo will be all over the place and start smelling to the point where no one wants to be anywhere near that poo-poo leak.
If that is your business having a poo-poo leak, then your clients will run away as fast as possible.
It is important to be more open and honest with your customer. Your communication with your clients is a very powerful thing and you do not have to communicate the same way we do with our clients.
You can communicate in different ways — messenger, group calls, email, twitter. The more you communicate then the more you will see a huge benefit in customer retention and how much your clients are willing to trust you even when things go bad.
They do not want to change services because it is such a pain in the butt to keep changing. But if they do not trust that you will help them and solve their problems, then they now have the need to change.
Conclusion
Right now, what is something with your customers — or even with friends and family — are you openly communicating? Are you openly letting them know how you feel? And are you asking how they feel?
Communication is vital in growing your business and flourishing in other aspects of your life.
Resources and Links
This is Dean Soto, your host of The Freedom In Five Minutes Podcast. Go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and I will catch you in the next episode!