Key take-aways from the article are:
- Give people something to talk about (e.g., a unique feature, benefit, value proposition, etc.).
- Let people experience the product and facilitate their talking about their experience publicly.
- Use traditional media to drive people to talk about their experience so their collective feedback is accumulated and publicly visible for others to use in their own purchase decisions.
- Be prepared to hear what you don't want to hear; be prepared to acknowledge questions, complaints, and suggestions and openly carry on the dialogue.
- Use the ideas contributed by real users to innovate as fast as possible to give people something more to talk about, such as adding new features that users say they want.
- Repeat the cycle often.
The burried lesson here is to "be prepared to hear what you don't want to hear." As such the question then becomes, what does listening look like now. There are several ways:
- POP comments, feedback, surveys
- Making it easy for consumers to email questions and comments to someone who will get back to them
- Focus groups
- Investing in an online opinion monitoring service
The last one is the one that doesn't get as much attention due to the fact that it costs money, but it may be one of the most telling ways to gather opinion because it is indirect -- It's hard to tell someone to their face that they have spinach lodged in their teeth. TG Madison has working relationships with a few companies which help understand this feedback and help work it into communication. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions.
