So day 2 is now done, and my brain is far past overdone.  I’m sitting down with a rum and coke and just finished converting today’s notes into a word document.

There’s just too much information to take in, you can only hope the notes you take make sense a t the end of the day.  As the day gets later I notice that notes become incoherent scribbles – I have to decipher my own writing, how’s that work?

The great thing about today, I had a couple of those “Ah-ha!” moments.  I love those, it’s like that point that the light bulp goes off and you realize it was worth the trip and cost to attend the conference.

Many times it turns out to be something simple and right in front of your face, however you’ve been so focused on fine tuning all the details you missed the easy changes.

There was a discussion around incident surveys that really got me thinking.  What’s the best way to approach these?

• How many questions?
• How often do you send them?
• Do you allow comments?
• What rating scale do you use?

and the list goes on…  He talked about how his company sends only 1 survey per 90 days to a single customer for a solved incident…  Well good, that’s right in line with what we do - 
Then the discussion geared towards the number of questions, and the rating scale.  They use a single question: “Did you like our service?” (don’t quote me on that, the question was similar) -
The customer is given two choices –  “Yes” & “No”   -  Straight and to the point.

If the customer selects “Yes”, the survey is over.   However, if they select “No” they are prompted to explain why.
To those of us that are used to a 1 to 5 scale, or the ever popular “Very dissatisfied / Dissatisfied / Neutral/  Satisfied / Very satisfied” <–  How the hell do you actually guage that?

I think his approach is great, customers appreciate simple and to the point, and it shows in his numbers.  He has a 45% response rate.  

I think the most important piece to this is that you follow up on all negative comments.  Just filing the comment away results in no gain for your company, or the customer.  What you do with those results can  really impact your organization.  The small issues, which may seem insignificant to you, could be a big dissatisfier for your customers.

Time to find some dinner !