Customer Feedback - Do You Make The Most Of It?

[Gemma Rowlands]

One of the things that I am most proud of is the feedback that I have received from previous clients, and this is something that I display on my website for everyone who visits it to see. I feel that this is the best way for potential clients to see the way that you deal with things, and it can certainly put you in a good position for the future.

Where do you display your feedback? On a website? In your office? Or maybe you don't at all! You definitely should do, though, because you should be proud that people have taken the time to write positive things about your service!

 

[Pete Brindle]

We encourage parents to leave comments on pieces of paper at the end of term. We're hoping to change that to a questionnaire pretty soon so that it will be even clearer what they think. But we certainly do like to make the most of any comments that we get. After all, if there is something that they think should be changed, it's likely that there are a lot of other people who would feel the same way, and would welcome anything that we could arrange.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

We encourage parents to leave comments on pieces of paper at the end of term. We're hoping to change that to a questionnaire pretty soon so that it will be even clearer what they think. But we certainly do like to make the most of any comments that we get. After all, if there is something that they think should be changed, it's likely that there are a lot of other people who would feel the same way, and would welcome anything that we could arrange.

Do you find that many of them are happy to fill them in? We've had fairly poor respondent rates with our questionnaires in the past.

 

[Pete Brindle]

Do you find that many of them are happy to fill them in? We've had fairly poor respondent rates with our questionnaires in the past.

The children LOVE filling in the forms. We also have a monthly draw for a free block of lessons for a random person who fills them in, so that's well worth it because they're not cheap! So the parents encourage them to fill them in for that reason.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

The children LOVE filling in the forms. We also have a monthly draw for a free block of lessons for a random person who fills them in, so that's well worth it because they're not cheap! So the parents encourage them to fill them in for that reason.

Yeah actually come to think of it I remember when I was a child loving filling in surveys. I also remember giving Pizza Hut a 0 out of 10 because they gave me a white crayon with my colouring sheet.. I mean, what are you supposed to do with that?? I must have been about six, and didn't write why.. I do get the occasional guilty feeling over that even now!

 

[Pete Brindle]

Yeah actually come to think of it I remember when I was a child loving filling in surveys. I also remember giving Pizza Hut a 0 out of 10 because they gave me a white crayon with my colouring sheet.. I mean, what are you supposed to do with that?? I must have been about six, and didn't write why.. I do get the occasional guilty feeling over that even now!

Remind me never to give you one of our surveys! Kidding. But it will have been obvious it was filled it by a child, so I really wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

Remind me never to give you one of our surveys! Kidding. But it will have been obvious it was filled it by a child, so I really wouldn't worry about it.

I just hope they realised or half of the staff may have been fired!

 

[Mike Turner]

We leave feedback forms for people to fill out at the garage, and offer a free service each quarter to one lucky customer! Although it's rather amusing when someone who gives bad feedback wins (we are good at what we do, honestly, but there are always people who blame you for things when they go wrong) because obviously they're not going to want to come back again, are they!

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

We leave feedback forms for people to fill out at the garage, and offer a free service each quarter to one lucky customer! Although it's rather amusing when someone who gives bad feedback wins (we are good at what we do, honestly, but there are always people who blame you for things when they go wrong) because obviously they're not going to want to come back again, are they!

You'll always get bad reviews. I've had a couple with my freelancing. One person (and this is all available to view on my freelancing profiles, so it's okay for me to talk about) asked me to proofread a thesis, saying that I needed no experience of the subject as it was spelling and grammar only. I then received a 1 star review because I had only changed spelling and grammar and not bothered with the content. Believe me, I was absolutely fuming at that one - getting marked down for not doing what I was specifically told NOT to do!

 

[Lauren Turner]

Of course, without a doubt! I love it when people post photos of the things I've made for them on Facebook and then write a little about it. Not only does it make me feel good, but it is also a great advertisement for what I do, obviously.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

Of course, without a doubt! I love it when people post photos of the things I've made for them on Facebook and then write a little about it. Not only does it make me feel good, but it is also a great advertisement for what I do, obviously.

Sorry if I've asked you this before (I forget) but do you have a website other than Facebook? You could post photos on there with the testimonials underneath, which might just mean that people who don't use Facebook would be able to find you. You can get some quite decent free websites that are easy to work; that might be enough for you at the beginning.

 

[Pete Brindle]

Sorry if I've asked you this before (I forget) but do you have a website other than Facebook? You could post photos on there with the testimonials underneath, which might just mean that people who don't use Facebook would be able to find you. You can get some quite decent free websites that are easy to work; that might be enough for you at the beginning.

That's a good idea. We do something similar on our website; students who give permission have their photo put, perhaps with a certificate of an exam they've passed, along with a few words about how they enjoy their lessons. It's great for other potential pupils to see.

 

[Mike Turner]

You'll always get bad reviews. I've had a couple with my freelancing. One person (and this is all available to view on my freelancing profiles, so it's okay for me to talk about) asked me to proofread a thesis, saying that I needed no experience of the subject as it was spelling and grammar only. I then received a 1 star review because I had only changed spelling and grammar and not bothered with the content. Believe me, I was absolutely fuming at that one - getting marked down for not doing what I was specifically told NOT to do!

I know. I sometimes feel that we get some bad reviews just because of people wanting something to moan about rather than actually having a bad experience. Of course I will hold my hands up when I do something wrong, but I would rather hear it face to face and have a chance to put things right, rather than the first I hear about it being reading online where people are having a discussing slagging off my business without really knowing what they're talking about. Some mistakes are genuine, and could very easily be put right.

 

[Lauren Turner]

I know. I sometimes feel that we get some bad reviews just because of people wanting something to moan about rather than actually having a bad experience. Of course I will hold my hands up when I do something wrong, but I would rather hear it face to face and have a chance to put things right, rather than the first I hear about it being reading online where people are having a discussing slagging off my business without really knowing what they're talking about. Some mistakes are genuine, and could very easily be put right.

People like complaining. I had a complaint (including a photo) from people who claimed to have bought an item at a craft show and then said it wasn't good enough. I had never made the item in the photo, and couldn't convince them that it wasn't one of mine! I don't know if they genuinely believed it was or not, but it most certainly was nothing a product that I have ever made, or even considered making to be honest with you.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

People like complaining. I had a complaint (including a photo) from people who claimed to have bought an item at a craft show and then said it wasn't good enough. I had never made the item in the photo, and couldn't convince them that it wasn't one of mine! I don't know if they genuinely believed it was or not, but it most certainly was nothing a product that I have ever made, or even considered making to be honest with you.

Yeah and they never bother to even try to put it right when they know that they've done something like that when it's unfair. I had negative feedback from a client recently that was quite similar to the situation that I described above. I was editing a book for spelling and grammar errors and they were saying in their feedback that I hadn't bothered to give them any kind of feedback on the actual story they'd written, which I found a little bit annoying because that wasn't my job at the time, and I really can only do what I've been hired to do, otherwise there's always the risk that it would take me days longer than I can afford for it to!

 

[Lauren Turner]

Yeah and they never bother to even try to put it right when they know that they've done something like that when it's unfair. I had negative feedback from a client recently that was quite similar to the situation that I described above. I was editing a book for spelling and grammar errors and they were saying in their feedback that I hadn't bothered to give them any kind of feedback on the actual story they'd written, which I found a little bit annoying because that wasn't my job at the time, and I really can only do what I've been hired to do, otherwise there's always the risk that it would take me days longer than I can afford for it to!

Don't you find that some clients think you should be psychic as well, though? Like, I will ask them for information about what they want me to include in a project I'm doing for them, and then at the end they'll ask me why I haven't done a certain thing, when the fact is that they didn't ask me to do the thing in the first place, so how could I know that they wanted me to do it?

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

Don't you find that some clients think you should be psychic as well, though? Like, I will ask them for information about what they want me to include in a project I'm doing for them, and then at the end they'll ask me why I haven't done a certain thing, when the fact is that they didn't ask me to do the thing in the first place, so how could I know that they wanted me to do it?

Definitely. The problem is that, although you and I are both professionals, the people who are asking us to do work often are not, and this means that they're not really sure how it works, or how much information we're going to need from them. Some of my most professional clients write up absolutely huge briefs for me before I do any work for them, and those are the projects that I tend to work better with, because you just know exactly what it is that they want from you.

 

[Mike Turner]

Definitely. The problem is that, although you and I are both professionals, the people who are asking us to do work often are not, and this means that they're not really sure how it works, or how much information we're going to need from them. Some of my most professional clients write up absolutely huge briefs for me before I do any work for them, and those are the projects that I tend to work better with, because you just know exactly what it is that they want from you.

We sort of have this issue as well when we're servicing; people don't understand what it means to have a vehicle serviced and as such they don't know what it should include, so we have had complaints when things like dents haven't been sorted out.. and I just think to myself that's not the point of a service, at all!

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

We sort of have this issue as well when we're servicing; people don't understand what it means to have a vehicle serviced and as such they don't know what it should include, so we have had complaints when things like dents haven't been sorted out.. and I just think to myself that's not the point of a service, at all!

No, a service is just making sure that the car is safe to drive, right? That's what I always think about it anyway, but you're right, people do tend to get the wrong ideas about things like that. You should let them know exactly what's included before they leave their car with them, and more to the point let them know what isn't included then they're not going to be disappointed.

 

[Pete Brindle]

People like complaining. I had a complaint (including a photo) from people who claimed to have bought an item at a craft show and then said it wasn't good enough. I had never made the item in the photo, and couldn't convince them that it wasn't one of mine! I don't know if they genuinely believed it was or not, but it most certainly was nothing a product that I have ever made, or even considered making to be honest with you.

People definitely enjoy complaining. I have had a lot of issues with parents complaining about things that they don't really know anything about, and trying to tell us that we're not doing our job correctly, so that can be a little bit annoying.