I just wanted to update our customers and community with some recent news. So we’ve worked with Addison Avenue, one of our customers, to acknowledge the way they’ve embraced the feedback from their customers to improve the way they do business.

You can read and review the submission here.

“It is our core belief at Addison Avenue that we can help people make their lives better. We are set apart as a Credit Union that can help solve our members’ real life problems and direct them towards achieving financial freedom – at any stage of life.”

If you’re wondering what a company like Addison Avenue (a Palo Alto Credit Union) does with all their customer feedback, see for yourself on their SuggestionBox page.

I setup this Zimbio poll called “What way do you capture feedback from customers?” and there have been 20 votes thus far. I’d like to share a bit of the history on the creation of this poll.

A. I posted a question on Twitter asking what polling tools people recommended and received 3 responses:

1. ask500 @BJ re fast polls, you can put a poll on Ask500.com from twitter like this: @ask500 Q: question here? answerA or AnswerB (follow @ask500)
2. PaulSoldera @BJ www.surveymonkey.com is pretty popular as a general survey app, used it once and was very easy
3. GroovyBrent @BJ I really like SurveyMonkey. Not sure if it would suit your needs.

From the responses above I could see that Survey Monkey was the clear winner. But, I still wanted something I could literally setup in 5-10 minutes and just launch that day. So I found Zimbio that had a poll tool integrated into it.

B. I created the question and the answers as seen here.
C. I then began posting to Twitter, IMing around to friends and shot a couple emails.
D. I received the “Sure, I’ll check it out,” “Will do” and “I’ll pass it to 30 more people.”

So now I’m at 20 votes and I’m asking for more help to gain a larger sample to truly see what tools companies are using to capture customer feedback.

Current Results:
It’s not so surprising to see that most are not even capturing customer feedback. Admitting that you aren’t is the first step towards recognizing that it’s time to reach out to your customers and find out what they think. So I’ll be posting my thoughts as the poll comes to an end over the next week.

It’s late on a Friday night and the office is quiet.

I wanted to create a connection between my own usage of SuggestionBox and how I thought it related to the other Suggesters in our community and on top of that what outcomes you might expect by engrossing yourself in your own community.

This morning I was sitting in on a call hosted by Learn From My Life featuring Lois Kelly, author, entrepreneur and marketing expert. During the call I noted some things she said about attracting and keeping great customers then developing relationships and trust. She said, “If you can provide a great customer experience you are sure to be on your way to achieving the latter two points.” Specifically in the area of “trust”, it’s important to understand an organization’s beliefs and values. This led me to think that if I could be a maverick for our own organization here at SuggestionBox and be the power Suggester, then I could wear my heart on my sleeve around others in the community. So I’m up to 90 suggestions! What’s also important is that I feel it’s important to reach out to others who would benefit by setting up a SuggestionBox page. Here are the ways to show your love and benefits that I feel any organization, SMB, Enterprise, Nonprofit, group, association or club could derive from building a community of raving fans:

• Infuse some trust and authenticity into the relationships you have with current and potential customers
• Empower your customers by doing things with them
• Generate Word of Mouth Marketing via the people around you that care
• Avoid missed opportunities like connecting with someone who may not have had the best experience or has a question
• Understand your customers and save time, money and the anxiety
• Improve the overall customer experience, starting with a simplified feedback channel

So we covered my usage, what a community can do for you on SuggestionBox and let’s look at the Suggesters. We’re working on a series of content that will help explain what a Suggester is. And we’re going to own this personality as an organization. As a Suggester, we are going to try to change the perception that when you submit feedback that you won’t receive a response. We often hear this is biggest hurdle for why people don’t often give feedback. We are challenging ourselves with taking this head on and doing everything we can to ensure our Suggesters are taken care of and are given the tools to succeed in their efforts to suggest and have their voices heard.

So over the next couple weeks, you’ll see some new tools launching and new ways that you can keep track of your progress against everybody else in the Suggester community. Of course, I challenge anyone to out-suggest me and any company to avoid missing an opportunity to connect with the people that care about them.

Like any relationship it starts with listening. So show some love, you just might get the same in return.