Tuesday, July 20, 2010

FEEDBACK: How it has evolved??

Businesses since time immemorial have a tendency to follow the lifecycle of START-GROW-MATURE-DIE. But then, the trend changed with the evolve of technology, the lifecycle had a new face, START-GROW-MATURE-FEEDBACK-REGROWTH and then something called “Social Media” re-defined the way companies do business. The term “FEEDBACK” is not restricted to “WHETHER you are satisfied in my product/service?” any more…It has got new dimensions to it…

FEEDBACK is closely associated with INVOLVEMENT, PARTICIPATION and sometimes BEING THINKERS!!! If Fritolays plans to come out with a new Flavour, instead of involving the core research team, why not throw the question to the people itself who uses the product “LAYS” and then “RAJMA” flavor gets introduced. Gone are the days when customers were treated as the ones who gives feedback, they have become an integral part of business re-definition. With the advent of Blogs, Twitters, Facebook, it has become easy to reach and extract the untapped customer interest/ideas, I would not use the term “feedback” for the sheer reason that it helps in giving a new face to business. “Customer Conversations” are a key to successful business, nothing to do with feedback, but just mere plain conversations!!! Conversations are not just one-sided anymore where the customers used to get newsletters, read about profits/balance sheets from the newspapers/websites, it has become two-way. The “Conversations” have an enriching customer experience where there is an open platform to interact with the company and the topic can range from complaints, issues, feedback, general discussion on services/products etc.

No wonder “Feedback” is associated with TRUST and LOYALTY, an engaged customer can only provide a true feedback be it positive or negative because of the sheer trust he/she has in the organization and believes the organization will show the same loyalty by taking care of such feedback.

Businesses which die and are thrown out of competition are the ones who stick to the old ways of taking feedback from their customers coz it’s not FEEDBACK ANYMORE, IT’S AN ENGAGEMENT!!!