Avionics News June 2012 - 79

purpose for soliciting customer feedback: “It’s a chance to find out what is going on with your customers,” Karten said. It reveals what’s trending wrong, so you can make changes to retain the customer, as well as what’s right, so you can keep it up. Feedback also allows you to explore other needs that you could fulfill. A customer fixating on one project, be it an install or just a repair, may not yet have his next in mind. With some gentle questioning, you may find you have other

evaluations. Did you provide agreedupon updates at milestones? Did you handle any stumbles in a professional, competent manner? Did you clear up any misunderstandings along the way. If you haven’t, the customer is less likely to be pleased. How often should you ask for feedback? “The ideal kind of feedback is no formal feedback at all because the parties have established a relationship right up front,” Karten said. “To the extent that can happen early on, there’s

... No tool in your crib is as important for ensuring your shop runs effectively as the feedback you collect.

products or services he’s not thought to ask about. By listening, you can create today’s customer into an even more valuable customer tomorrow. Constant Contact Ultimately, you’re goal is this: By the time you’re done with a job, you should feel comfortable asking customers, “Would you recommend our company to other people?” An affirmative answer means they are satisfied enough to personally endorse you, Thomas said. That’s huge in today’s marketing world, but getting there means you know what to measure en route, when to measure it and what methods to use to ensure each project begins and ends with a “wow.” Ask open-ended questions to gather

less need for a formal kind of feedback gathering.” In the absence of that, inviting comments is a work-around. Use it by telling the customer you will call for this purpose halfway through the job, then again once it’s done and delivered. After that point, feedback evolves from focusing on delivery to gathering big-picture evaluations. With customer permission, you can touch base every three or six months just to learn how things are going and identify any new needs. As for how to do it, your best results will come from personal, informal conversations with you as an owner, or with another high-level manager at your shop, especially one who already has a

relationship with the customer. This is important operational information, and it’s important to make time to accomplish this task. In fact, build time for it into how you do business. “You’re not in a transactional environment,” Thomas said. “You’re in the relationship-selling environment.” Any of these conversations can take place at the airport, during lunch, via email or over the phone, depending on the customer’s preference, and none need to take long. However, each should include strategic questions that collect concrete examples. Thomas suggested these conversations work better than formal surveys that ask “rate, on a scale of one to five” questions for collecting this information, given the individual nature of how avionics are sold and serviced. Besides, fewer people will respond to the survey than will take your call, and these personal contacts provide additional opportunities to thank the customer for the business. Putting Feedback to Work Most businesses can – and do – create feedback opportunities. But, that’s the easy part. What separates the best shops from the merely good is the ability to create a system to report and analyze comments, develop an action plan for improvement and follow up with feedback so customers know their voices were heard, Thomas said. The worst-case example of a dysfunctional system occurred after United Airlines broke a musician’s
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Avionics News June 2012

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