Looking For Feedback

I always appreciate when support teams take an effort to actually search for feedback for themselves, not waiting in their entrenchments until they’re called by a customer. Usually a pissed off customer. That’s the rule that we are willing to do something more likely when we are angry. When we’re happy it’s all OK in our comfort zone and there's no need to take any action.

I praised the Google Reader team for looking for feedback and as they write it’s just their policy. I know that the post is two weeks old but it’s worth citing anyway:

“The Google Reader team tries to read all the feedback that gets posted on blogs, and has also been known to reply in comments. This is a great way for us to get a feel for what's important to you, so keep writing up your thoughts and feature suggestions.”

That’s just so easy. No need to do hard core, deep research. Just waiting for Google Alerts (I guess) and writing a couple of warm sentences, thanking for feedback no matter if it’s positive or negative. Feedback is always good. Feedback is something that forces you to move, to react. Now, when all things are moving to the web, when blogs became so influential that Microsoft sends free laptops to top bloggers just to get some reviews, you sometimes need to move from your comfort zone of support inbox and check what people say about you.

That’s not true in every case – when you work for carriers, well, you don’t expect that their middle management write blogs. However, when you address your product to wider market, especially when plain internet users are your target group, don’t hide in the abyss of the standard support channels.

Google Alerts is a great tool for you in this area. Google Reader team use it. Marc O’Brien, the CEO of Projity contacted me just few hours after my post about Project-ON-Demand was published, only because he was alerted that someone had written about his company's product. That’s what I call a great user experience. When support teams care not only about feedback they’ve received, but also about feedback they haven’t received. The only thing which is essential here is the will. If you’re willing to go out from your support channels shelter, the rest is simple (and free of charge).