Dialogue

It's been fun.

I feel, for once, like a race course owner rather than the race horse running the race. I am not just doing any more. I am facilitating the doing. I feel, for once in my working life, truly 'client side'. Heck I even have my own suppliers - three groups of people working on the App and the website; I have customers - the researchers; and I (will) have consumers - the respondents who participate in the panels.

When I first launched the App I was very worried indeed about comments and reviews which might criticise. I knew that my hard work could come to nothing with only a handful of 'this doesn't work/this is rubbish' type reviews. Worse, our reputation as a company would be destroyed too (the first big learning was: don't call your App the same name as your company).

Then we launched and the emails started coming.

None so terrible that I had to delete them. And I carefully replied to each and every one while at the same time forwarding their emails to our developer.

I suddenly found myself 'in dialogue' with customers who essentially liked the App but wanted to see improvements. And only now do I appreciate the significance of something I have always preached to retail clients. That the best time to engage with and delight customers is when you are resolving some sort of issue for them. Things going well is expected and opportunity to 'delight' is low. But correcting an issue efficiently will build loyalty, trust and love in a way that things going fine never will. And it all comes down to having a dialogue with customers.

Does this whole article read like a cliché? Then why are most organisations so useless at doing it?