I've worked in companies where customer satisfaction data is collected, and passed on to market research for analysis, and maybe even passed on to product development for improvement. But that's it. Very little about the "customer experience was ever recorded let alone questioned and improved. What ever can be done quickly and impersonally is usually the road taken.

An article from the e-Prairie newsletter (from Chicago also I believe!) today highlights some of the great and inexpensive ways to get real-life, street level customer feedback, the kind that you speak of in your book. Yet, despite your efforts with the book, and knowing how much of the aforementioned article will fall on deaf ears, I continue to wonder what the big road block is to companies getting real data and using that real data to make marked improvements in their customer-facing experiences?

In your experience, why is it so hard for some companies to take that first step and engage the primary principal of creating customer evangelists, going out and getting real "customer plus-delta" feedback? Outside of what's written in Chapter 16 about getting started, are there any grass-roots (aka - mid-management level, not executive order) tactics that you've seen to get companies to take this first step to creating customer evangelists?

According to Ben, "The biggest obstacle to knowing what customers really think about us is fear. It's easy to fear customers will tell us you your product or service stinks, that you're horrible people and you should never have set foot on earth. That's the worst-case scenario.

Realize, though, that people are already talking about your product and services; they're telling colleagues, friends and family about product quality and service experience. They may be evangelizing you or discussing slipshod quality or defectiveness in online or offline forums. An organization focused on creating customer evangelists knows what people are saying by going after feedback before it goes too far out of bounds.

Some tactics for gathering customer plus-delta (the plus, meaning what do customers love, and the delta, meaning what would customers improve):

- Google your company name, products, and your name to see what people are saying on the web. Google makes it easy for you to receive an email alert when your name pops up on the web.
- Call at least one customer every week, just to chat. Ask a lot of questions and listen, listen, listen.
- Form a customer advisory board. The purpose of this group is to provide ongoing insight into improving current products and feedback on new products and strategies. An outside company that facilitates the board can be invaluable.
- Make it easy for customers to provide their feedback, such as on every page of your website, through point-of-sale displays, after every meeting with vendors, etc.
- Put pictures and email addresses of people in the company, even the CEO, on your website."