Blogs

Training facilitators can sometimes become a little fixated on ensuring they capture attendee feedback from all of the participants. The primary purpose of collecting attendee feedback is to be able to continually improve the training, to identify key successes and, of course, be able to demonstrate the benefits to existing and future clients of your services. But how important is it that EVERYONE responds? The Pro – Knowing what everyone thinks gives you the full picture The Con – ‘Forcing’ attendees to complete, who really don’t want to, just encourages a ‘tick the box’ exercise.  This attendee feedback being pointless data that will skew yourRead More →

Chances are that if you’ve ever worked as part of a team, you will have attended a team building day at some point.  Maybe you were trying to drop an egg from a 58 story building without it smashing?  Perhaps building a bridge out of bits of paper?  Enjoying (more that you probably should) firing a paintball at the back of a colleague?  There are a whole host of choices when it comes to team building activity days. But what is the point? A team building day can often be thought of as a ‘bit of a jolly’.  The chance to get out of theRead More →

It’s a common fear – I’ll never get the workshop feedback if I let them leave the room before completing it! Don’t worry – it’s not as hard as you think! What’s wrong with this approach? You want to ensure that attendees leave on a high, ‘trapping’ them to fill out a form (with the feeling of being watched, and often brain overloaded from the day) is not going to get you quality feedback or a thank you! What do to instead: Paper forms are fiddly and require you to spend time printing / scanning / typing up results etc etc – they’re really notRead More →

“Should I ask for a name in my customer survey?” is something I get asked a lot from clients and contacts. There are pros and cons to both: Some of the pros: If there’s an issue you can contact the customer and resolve it. Having a name in the customer survey means if a great testimonial has been given you can use it.  Many people prefer to see names with a testimonial rather than just the comment (provided you have permission to use it!) You know who has responded! Some of the cons: If there’s a small niggling issue respondents are less likely to putRead More →

Great customer service promises and guarantees are something we see a lot from consumer businesses. Is customer service enough? The simple answer is no! A personal experience that explains why……. I recently travelled to the USA and booked to hire a car. The booking process was straight forward. The representatives friendly, helpful and supportive (great customer service!) HOWEVER…..upon arrival (after a long flight) we queued for over an hour to speak to the check in agent and get the paperwork for our car. When the tiredness and frustration subsided I thought about how different it could’ve been if they had looked at the whole experience.Read More →

Workshop Feedback Forms!! We’ve all been there, you’ve taken the day out to attend some valuable new learning. The trainer / facilitator has spent a lot of time and effort making sure they provide you with good content and exercises to improve your particular skill set. And then it happens……… Right at the end of the day, when your brain is full and your mind is thinking about what you need to pick up on the way home for tea, an A4 sheet of paper gets handed out to all the delegates. Before you go……(*mental groan*) “Can you just give me your thoughts about todayRead More →

Implementing regular ways to use testimonials effectively can be a simple, yet really beneficial marketing approach for any size business. Customer testimonials have an 89% effectiveness rating as the most effective form of marketing content (SocialFresh) 97% of B2B buyers feel that user-generated content like consumer reviews are more credible than other types of content (ThisMoment) Testimonials can be captured as part of your regular customer or client survey, ad-hoc personal requests, or maybe you receive them in an unsolicited way (the best ones!) The key is to keep testimonials regularly updated and out there for your prospective clients to see. Here’s some ideas: Post on yourRead More →

A Great Customer Experience (often mistaken as customer service) is every interaction, touchpoint and feeling generated by the client or consumer of a business. Remember, this starts before you even know they are a customer!  Your website, reviews, word of mouth, social media, adverts etc etc. Opinions (and feelings) are being formed of what you do and how you do it. Customer service is defined as “the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services (a small fraction of the whole experience).  If you get the experience right there is arguably little or no requirementRead More →

Customer Survey Software – there are loads! Google it and you get pages and pages of your potential options. They are used by all business sectors to gather information from pretty much any group – customers (both new and past), employees, suppliers. Here are just a few of the choices out there: SurveyMonkey / Typeform / AskNicely / Survey Sparrow / Zoho Survey / Quick TapSurvey / Survey Gizmo / Smart Survey / Qualtrics / Google Forms (sort of!) The majority of survey software will all offer survey creation, distribution options, reporting and analytics. For most small-medium businesses, this is all that will be required.Read More →