The feedback cycle in action
November 30, 2009 · → 4 Comments
Anyone who has heard me rant before, knows a theme is: you need to explore the views of your tribe; uncover the strengths and areas to improve; then drive change by putting the strengths into your marketing and focus business planning with their ideas.
I recently attended the Huntington Estate Music Festival in Mudgee with the 
music organised by Musica Viva Australia. It was the 3rd time I’ve been and now see myself as part of their tribe.
Last year they had a paper based feedback survey that festival goers were asked to complete before leaving. I was happy! I naturally looked at ways the survey could be improved, but was happy the initiative was taken.
What really made me excited was that at the start of the festival, Tim Stevens (Huntington Estate owner & winemaker) said in the introduction, how they’d listened and changed as a result of the feedback.
They completed the research cycle and I wanted to describe what I saw of the process and how the crowd talked about it.
Firstly, they listened. They asked for feedback. At events there are two times to do this: at the end of the event and after they have gone home.
- At the event: has higher response as participants are there and engaged. They are giving feedback on a recent experience, still in their memory. The down side is that it doesn’t give a considered response. In the case of training, this is an important consideration. At an event like Huntington this is a great time.
- After the event: generally gets lower response rates as participants have returned to their normal lives. If you want to know their considered response, such as in training, then it can be better to gain feedback at this time even with lower response rates.
Secondly, they looked at the feedback. They considered ways to improve from the ideas they were given and had information for marketing.
Thirdly, they changed. A range of initiatives to make the festival even better were implemented. I hear from buyers of research or people who do research in-house, that it isn’t value for money. My response is: what did you do when you got the results? And often hear: we didn’t have time or resources to act on them. Of course, you then didn’t find it value for money!
Fourthly, they communicated the changes as a result of the feedback. They kept communicating how they were seeing ways to improve. This is a great event already, with growing audiences. They have raving fans, who talked about being heard.
They said it was great they improved X, now it would be great if they improved it this way. That would make it even better.
They commented that they saw feedback forms for 2009 and would complete them so the organisers would know their views again. This is an important distinction because declining response rates is a problem. The fact they knew they were listened to, encouraged them to participate again.
The full cycle benefits in building the tribe. That makes the event greater. That makes their business greater.
Do you complete the cycle or just ask for the feedback?
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4 Responses to “The feedback cycle in action”
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Cool article Kate. This points out two big issues for the research industry as a whole – responsibility and engagement. I believe we do have a responsibility to share our results with the people who helped us reach them. In your example people were directly able to see what impacts their feed back had on their event. And the fact that the organisers spoke directly to their ‘tribe’ is always a great example of how to best engage your ‘Tribe’.
These issues of responsibility and engagement are ones that online panel research communities are grappling with at the moment. One place this is being done is via Research Voice – an SSI initiative for teh industry as a whole.
I am no longer working at SSI but I do think that this initiative is a great one for researchers involved in online (‘panel’ based) research in anyway, shape or form.
Great articile Kate. I am currently trying to drive a survey to ‘produce a market’ to take to our investors. It is so hard to get people to take the time and I have read heaps on this, I believe it may take weeks to get the momentum going. I plan to build a culture around my tribe and their feedback will instrumental to every decision we make.
Thanks.
Hi Damian – Thanks! I think there is also a responsibility of the buyers of the research. If you want value to be seen from the time invested (for the researcher, the organisation, and the participants) then communication has to happen. Definitely a educational responsibility for the research industry.
Hi Tracey – Thanks! Is this the survey on your website? I loaded the first page. I suggest changing the order so that the personal questions are later so that their trust is built by doing the survey and there is some context to giving you their name. Maybe have a look at this article I wrote for Flying Solo: http://www.flyingsolo.com.au/p204697145_Customer-feedback-Ten-steps-to-great-survey-design.html
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