Dont Eat The Shrimp

How many times have you heard great reviews about a restaurant, only to be told something like “just between us though, don’t eat the shrimp!” Just like that, the desire to want to eat the restaurants great food is tarnished by the fact you might get sick to your stomach.

No doubt your customers, clients and even website visitors are saying this about you to others right now! So how can you find out what your “shrimp” is?

Know Your Customers

Keeping in contact with your clients, customers and website visitors is very important. In fact getting to know them just shy of a personal level will probably be sufficient. Following up with them after services have been rendered or products purchased can provide insight on how your service or product rates. Most importantly you must ask something like “Now that you have received our services, is there something we can improve upon for you?” or if you have a product “Now that you have used our product, how can we make it better for you?”

Website visitors are a bit different as the exchange is in information versus a product or service. Luckily several solutions already exist that allow for communication between web visitors like:

Blogs (WordPress) – Adding a blog enables you to keep visitors updated with your latest news. The great part is WordPress comes with a comments section where visitors can leave feedback on what you write.

Forums (vBulletin) – Adding a forum gives your visitors a way to exchange ideas and provide feedback on

FeedBack (Kampyle) – Kampyle has repackaged and old tried but true method of asking for feedback. They simply put a button on your site that asks for feedback! Kampyle provides analytics data and easy cut and paste code to get started.

Newsletters (aWeber) – If you don’t have a list start building one. Its better to have one and not need it instead of needing and not having it. Keep in contact with visitors, provide them extra tips, discounts or secret new products. When its time to ask for feedback, you have a list at your fingertips.

Fix What Is Wrong

Getting the information is one thing, acting on it is entirely different. I am as guilt as the next guy, sometimes I sit on information a bit to long. But customers of Soxialize software get my immediate attention and I make sure to place request for enhancements at the top of the priority list.

To go back to the restaurant story, what would happen if the restaurant kept serving bad shrimp? If they didn’t changed the recipe or supplier and kept serving poor food. I will tell you, eventually more people would get sick and the word would spread rather fast. Aside from getting the health inspector to visit, customers would label the restaurant as a poor food experience.

Now let’s say that the restaurant Chef took the news of the poor shrimp dish and acted on it. The Chef fires the cook, finds a new supplier and changes the recipe. Now when a person says “between us, just don’t eat the shrimp” the reply would be “why not? I had it the other day and it was great!”

Stop Serving Bad Shrimp!

Everyone makes mistakes, no software is released without bugs, no book can go to publishing without editing and a hair will always make it into someone food. What you do about it is what makes the difference between an isolated incident or a reflection of poor quality products or services.

Go the extra mile, fix whats wrong, occasionally give a dinner on the house and keep your customers happy!

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