How often do you have a transaction with a for-profit company where you are not asked to give your feedback about the experience?

And how often do you have a transaction with a non-profit where you are asked?
I wanted to answer the first of these by recording every transaction I had for a week and the level of feedback solicitation I received.  Because the line-by-line may not be particularly interesting – I don’t, as the saying goes, get out much – here’s the summary in graph form:

Direct feedback outreach

1. Hotel that will remain anonymous – emailed survey with smiley or frowny faces. I might have mentioned on the survey that the desk clerk was asleep with a towel over his head when I went to check out.
2. Hotels.com – rate the above hotel
3. Home Depot – clerk told me about chance to win $5000 gift card and circled on receipt
4. Expedia – emailed 10-point scale
5. Amazon.com – duh
6. Emailed feedback request from third-party seller on Amazon
7. Emailed feedback request from another third-party seller on Amazon
8. I’m not saying we buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, but Jeff Bezos took out a life insurance policy on me
9. DonorVoice newsletter and Webinar – practice what you preach…

Indirect feedback ask with incentives

1. Wow Bao in Reagan National Airport – chance to win $500 gift card on receipt
2. McAlisters –free cookie if I take the survey on receipt. Also a sign on the outside
3. Walgreens – URL and phone number to take survey for $3000 monthly sweepstakes on receipt
4. Walmart – chance to win $1000 at URL on reverse of receipt

Indirect feedback without incentives

1. Hudson in Reagan National Airport – phone number and email address on receipt
2. Quiznos in Charlotte International Airport – phone number and email address on receipt
3. Spring Hill, TN, Post Office – phone number, URL, and QR code on receipt

No feedback ask

1. Nashville Airport parking lot
2. Local Chinese restaurant. In fairness, the characters at the bottom of my receipt may be a request for feedback, but as I don’t read Chinese, it likely isn’t a good ask for feedback.
3. An airline that for the sake of anonymity I’ll refer to as Definitely-Not-Canadian Airlines, who cancelled my Washington to Nashville flight for weather despite 1) the flight originally being delayed for mechanical issues, 2) there being no bad weather in Washington, 3) in Nashville, or 4) in between. This distinction is important because it means that Definitely-Not-Canadian Airlines would not pay for the hotel at which I had to stay for six hours before flying back to Nashville through Charlotte.

Is your nonprofit asking for feedback after your interactions with donors and supporters?  If not, I’m not saying that you are as bad at customer service as Definitely-Not-Canadian Airlines.  You, dear reader, have never forced me to go to Charlotte against my will while paying for the alleged privilege.

I am, however, saying that:

• If you aren’t asking for feedback, you are as good at getting feedback as DNC Airlines and worse at it than a hotel where the desk clerk is asleep and worse than the United States Postal Service.
• The vast majority of for-profit companies ask for feedback (and for-profit companies are the vast majority of our experiences, so this is becoming expected).
• Feedback can help you see issues you wouldn’t normally see, like our sleeping hotel desk manager.

I would add to this that people like being asked for their opinion.  We know from outside research that people who are asked for feedback are more likely to do business with you again even if nothing was done about their feedback.  You can improve retention just by hearing people out (and can do even better than that if you do something about it).

So how do you do feedback well?  This is the point at which I say we can do that for you here at DonorVoice and that it’s super simple. However, it’s also the point at which I give you useful tips that you can incorporate whether you use us or not.  Good feedback systems:

• Are systems. Yes, I’m in danger of getting arrested by the Tautology Police (motto: we enforce the law because it’s the law).  But most of the ways that companies reached out were through receipts, emails, and signs – ways that guarantee that similar messages were sent each and every time.
• Are simple and standardized. The “was this hotel a smiley face or a frowny face” is literally the simplest way to rate and thus likely to get rated.  Similarly, the Expedia 10-point scale and Amazon’s five stars are simple and intuitive.  On the flip side, I would be shocked if many people emailed the email on the bottom of a receipt in free-form, for the same reason kids like true/false and multiple choice to essay tests.
• Give you a reason to participate. It doesn’t have to be a gift card or a cookie, but even having a “because” phrase in there (we want your feedback, because we want you to be happy with your experience) is powerful.
• Involve everyone. The Home Depot cashier went above and beyond to make sure I filled out the survey by talking about it and circling the ways to do it.
• Allow the user to pick the channel. Do you want to talk or not talk?  Go online or stay offline?  All options should ideally be available to someone who may want to leave an anonymous tip or yell at someone for a while until they feel better.
• Have follow-up. The hotel that I left feedback with apologized for the sleepy clerk and told me that wasn’t what they want to show to the world.  Not shockingly, I’m still waiting to hear back from DNC Air.

Any stories of quality feedback experiences you’ve had?  Please email me at nellinger@thedonorvoice.com – we’d love to feature your story.  Thanks!