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Putting Your Feedback Forms on Steroids

Written by: David Frey

Article Overview: This is a simple strategy that nearly any business can utilize. All it takes is a little elbow grease to make it happen.

Putting Your Feedback Forms on Steroids

Yesterday a friend and I went to a local Mexican restaurant to have lunch. The service and food were great. At the end of the meal the waiter handed us a "Comment Card" to fill out. I picked it up and took a look at it.

Hmmmm....

The Comment Card had a lot to be desired.

Here's the Comment Card We Were Handed

Want to see what the Comment Card looked like that we were handed?

Here it is --> http://url123.com/vwmew

(copy and paste the URL into your browser)

What do you think? From my viewpoint, the only useful thing on this Comment Card was the "What Could We Do to Please You More" question.

Giving pre-defined choices such as "Very Good," "Good," or "No Good," is worthless. (The one exception to this is if you want numerical responses for "scoring" your employees.)

Here's What I Would Do With this Comment Card

A great comment card should do three things:

1. Get constructive, honest feedback to help you improve your business.


2. Get a testimonial that you can use in your marketing efforts.


3. Get referrals! Referrals, being the most important, in my humble opinion.

So, I took the time to re-design this Comment Card to satisfy all three of my requirements. The new design puts your Comment Card on steroids.

Would You Like to See My New Comment Card Design?

Here it is --> http://url123.com/v3ha7

Here are four things you'll notice from my new Comment Card.

1. Notice how I ask open ended questions to get real, honest feedback.

2. Notice how I ask, "What Did You Enjoy." The answer to that becomes a testimonial.


3. Notice how I ask for referrals!

4. Finally, notice how I bribe the customer to fill out the form. Most people won't fill out the form unless they have an incentive to do so.


What Do You Do Now that You Have the Comments?

I developed this Comment Card form while working in the senior living industry. We received testimonials and referrals like crazy. But it didn't mean a hill of beans if you don't do anything with them. So here's what we did with the results...

1. We immediately entered in the information into a custom database that we had set up to capture this data.


2. The database would automatically merge this information with pre-formatted letters to the referral prospects on the card. The letter would include the name of the person who referred them and their testimonial.

It would also include a 2 for 1 certificate in the name of the person who gave the referral. (that's called "borrowing affinity")

We found that 65% of these certificates were redeemed! A 65% referral conversion rate...amazing!


And the best part about it was that the entire referral system was AUTOMATIC!


We didn't have to ask anyone for a referral, but we received 20 - 30 referrals A DAY!

3. We created a binder for each employee and put in the appropriate employee's feedback forms. Then every quarter, during our performance appraisals we would review some of the comments with our employees.

This is a simple strategy that nearly any business can utilize. All it takes is a little elbow grease to make it happen.

But like all great referral systems, once you set them up, they almost run themselves and keep producing the same great results over and over again, on autopilot.

Would You Like to Discover More Unique Referral Strategies Like The "Comment Card" System?

This is just one of over 105 referral strategies that I explain in detail in my best selling Instant Referral Systems program (http://www.InstantReferralSystems.com)

If you want to triple the amount of referrals you're currently receiving and you...

...hate imposing on your good customers who have become your personal friends.

...feel like a multi-level marketer begging friends and family members for the names and contact information of their close friends.

...get tired of trying to memorize silly referral scripts to manipulate your friends.

...dislike the embarrassment and shame you feel when being rejected.

...get sweaty palms and a sick feeling just getting up the nerve to ask for a referral...

Related Articles
  Using Freebies To Get Consumers Feedback
  How To Give Effective Feedback
  Help Me Keith: My Feedback Makes People Defensive!
  Sales and Customer Service are Just Like Steriod Use in Baseball
  Sales Prospecting on Steroids

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Related Forum Posts
Re: How Important is Feedback in eBay? - Feedback is VERY important to me when purchasing on eBay and similar sites. If they don't have several transactions and a 100% feedback (or close to it) then I most likely will not purchase from them.
Subject Line Etiquette - For myself, it's not so much "etiquette" as common sense. If you're emailing someone with a business offer or to strike up a relationship, you do not put "Hello" or "Hi" or something cryptic in the subject line. You make it clear what your email is about - just as you would on a message board. So instead of "wff" for example, the guy who emailed me a couple of days ago should have said, "Feedback on Your WFF Article" - so that I would have known what it was about without having to look at it and try to think...
Selling a Service - What sort of service are you trying to sell? I have a good friend who headed up the marketing for a good number of service companies and showing pictures of before and after (if applicable) is good. Putting together a flyer with a bulleted list (quick and easy to read) of the benefits to the customer and testimonials from satisfied customers are all great ways to help sell your service. Cold calls are horrible and I've done them, but never liked it. Besides, your normal return on cold calls is low. I joined a BNI (Business Networking International) networking group to promote my home improvement business and that worked well. I got to know the members and many used my services. At this point they were able to refer qualified leads to me. Let me know what you're selling and I can try to think of some other ideas. Chris
What is your hit ratio? - Like most entrepreneurs I have more ideas for where I want to take my business than I can handle. I believe in the "fail early, fail often" philosophy and try to find small ways to get started on a project to see if it has any legs. I would estimate that for every 50 things I try, most of them don't have an impact for me, 10 of them have a slightly positive impact, and 1 hits it really big. Some of my big wins over the past few years have been: * Learning the ins and outs of search engine optimization to drive traffic * Putting up and optimizing Google AdSense ads to monetize the website * Deciding to be the leader in profiling famous entrepreneurs online * Recruiting outside authors to help contribute to the website content (now have over 25,000 pages) * Creating the entrepreneur forums * Bringing on staff to help cope with the daily amount of work required to keep things running smoothly What is your hit ratio and some of your big wins?
Using your home for collateral is one thing, but... - Putting up your home for collateral is one thing, but utilizing the equity in it to finance a business is a whole other ball game and could be damaging in the long run. Do you know that if you completely finance your business with home equity instead of a busienss loan you will not be able to obtain a working capital loan later down the road? should you run into some financial troubles or wish to expand or remodel with working capital loan, you won't be able to get it if you finaced by personal means. It's always best to build a track record with a lender for future use and it's always better to be in business debt rather than personal debt. I always say: "You wouldn't hire a Plumber to do the Electrical in your home, so why would you finance a business using your home equity? Equity loans are for your home, business loans are for your business. You may however, utilize some of the equity in your home for loan down payment (depending upon your qualifications) and we can help determine whether that would be more helpful or damaging to your loan by pre-qualifying you for free. when using your home for collateral, it doesn't necessarily mean you will lose your home (in the event you cannot pay your loan payments). Lenders are always willing to work with you once you have a loan with them and they have already taken on the risk. they typically only utilize what they lien if nothing else can be resoloved (so it's basically a last resort) to go after what they lien.


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