Last week, I talked about transparency in business and why I thought it was important. I also said that my next post on the subject of transparency would be on products so here goes…
What do I mean by transparency with products?
I mean:
- telling customers exactly what they can expect from our products
- not hiding or otherwise obscuring information that they need to know to make the best decision for them.
- helping the customer decide (with all information) what is best for their interest.
One of the ways we ensure that we are being transparent is how we use our customer reviews. We have a customer review process in which each order that is purchased is sent with a simple questionnaire to determine the nature of our customers’ experience. Early on, these reviews were only seen by senior management – this was a huge mistake in the transparency stakes. So we opened the reviews to everyone in our company.
What happened?
Everyone in our company pitched in and made sure we were not making mistakes over and over, using customer feedback as a solid basis. In other words, we got better faster, thanks to responding directly to customer reviews and feedback.
Great.
But still not really fully transparent. So, How could we do better?
I thought that a natural evolution of this process was to put these reviews on our site so every potential buyer could see what others had said about a product. I wasn’t ready for the reaction from some of our people. At that meeting, fear overtook some, and what seemed like a simple idea erupted into panicked ‘what if’ scenarios? What if it hurt sales? What if someone put up something that was unfair? What if we lost manufacturing partners over this?
After talking people down off of the ledge, I explained that if we are truly committed to being the best, and getting better every day like our values suggest, we not only should open the feedback to other customers, we had to.
So about a year ago, we started automatically adding the feedback from our customers to our product review tabs for all customers to see. We never edit them (except for any explicit language of course, if any). What our customers say about the product is put directly on the site for everyone to see.
What happened then?
Visible, honest product reviews meant that when we made mistakes, and everyone saw them; our manufacturers, our employees and our customers. As a result, our company was forced into action. It supercharged our company as everyone took responsibility for making sure things were done right. By committing to transparency in products instead of trying to hide the mistakes, it feels like we have enlisted the help of thousands of customers in making us better every day.
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Jeff: I just ordered from your company, first time, waiting to see the results. Just curious about your addition of a blog and if it will get used much? I am a principal in CaterTrax and am considering creating one as a ‘me-too’ but not sure of its effectiveness. Good luck -duff
Hi Duff
Thanks for the order. I hope the results exceed your expectations. The blog is a fair amount of work on the front end and to be truthful, I am not sure I can point to any tangible benefit. My feeling though, and why I decided to write the blog is that it would give a sense of my views and the company we are building. In that way, the blog is as much for employees as anyone else.
I hope this helps.