How Embracing Negative Customer Feedback Can Steer Your Business in the Right Direction

I listened to Jordan Harbinger and Jay Baer in episode 491 of the Art of Charm Podcast, talk about negative customer feedback, customer retention and how to approach leveraging it to your advantage. The Art of Charm is an amazing podcast, love it, and is one of my go to podcasts on my commute.   There is so much covered that’s beyond just entrepreneurship and the core of it is all about relationships and helping guys become better at every aspect of their life.  Anyway it’s just really amazing stuff all the time, definitely worth checking out The Art of Charm podcast, as I very rarely have listened to any Art of Charm podcast episode that hasn’t given me a tremendous amount of value and this one does not disappoint.

Jay Baer and Jordan Harbinger get really into customer feedback and how important it is to get that customer feedback and also, how to approach receiving and leveraging customer feedback. I think that using customer feedback and embracing it is an under-utilized practice.  I completely 100% agree that listening to customer feedback, acknowledging customers and answering them in a public environment as well as private environment is critical to brand retention and brand loyalty.

Jay Baer said something else that I also very much agree with. Customer service is an integral part of marketing and quite possibly is one of the most important components in today’s marketing ecosystem, and that is to deliver customer experiences that make an impact. Too many organizations have departments and business processes split out, operating solely within their own fishbowl, and though we’re all connected, we are becoming more disconnected in some ways.   I feel that the silos are growing more rapidly and are becoming more defined, splitting the focus of serving the needs of our customers across too many disconnected departments. How many times do you talk to people in departments that do not understand or are unaware of what is going on in other departments that should be logically connected and share similar goals and objectives? (ie. SEM – Search Engine Marketing & SEO – Search Engine Optimization, or Sales and Marketing, or Customer Service & Marketing etc.) When this happens, there is a misunderstanding of what’s going on in another department, right beside them in a related responsibility and work flow.  This disconnect can prove to be a gap in your customer service model and paying closer attention to it, could provide your company with a competitive advantage.  Embracing negative customer feedback can help you zero in and close those gaps, helping you increase customer service and customer satisfaction, leading to brand loyalty and brand advocacy.

Negative Customer Feedback
Steering Your Business In the Right Direction: A Competitive Advantage

As a small business operator, you have the advantage over larger organizations, that cannot react as quickly and pivot to make changes rapidly.  These quick reactions are competitive advantages that you should be taking advantage of as a small business owner.  If you pay attention to negative customer feedback, react and deploy changes quickly in your business, it could give you an edge over you larger competitors and help you win market share in your niche.  Remember, agility and speed are a major factor in business these days, so leveraging negative customer feedback and responding publicly, could even go as far as generating new business for you and your team.

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