The Customer debrief - how to get feedback that’s genuinely helpful

I’ve heard it said “feedback is a gift”.  I understand the sentiment.   Feedback is vital if we don’t want to exist in a echo chamber. It can REALLY help us to improve.  So yes, feedback is a gift.

Yet it’s hard to come by… I give speeches for a living. And if I want to keep making a living out of it, I reckon I need to be decent at it.  So I’m really keen to improve through feedback.  But whenever I ask for feedback on my speech people will generally say “it was wonderful - thank you!” And if I’m honest I just want to skip away at that point and pat myself on the back before they think of anything negative to say,  but then I’d never really maximise the learning. So this begs the question how do we get our customers to share genuinely honest feedback?

Well I’ve already covered how we can get honest feedback from our team through the medium of the “Debrief”. (See blog) So I thought….I know I’ll offer a customer debrief - boom!

I reached out enthusiastically to my repeat clients declaring my bold new intention to debrief after every engagement.  I imagined they would all be ludicrously impressed. But it’s been a lot harder to initiate and sustain a debriefing ritual with my top clients than I’d expected.

Why is hard to get meaningful customer feedback?

First let’s acknowledge some barriers - many customers are reluctant to give feedback in first place.  You’ll know this if you’ve ever looked at Trip Advisor.  It’s hard to get a balanced view. That’s because when people are angry they want to do something to vent that anger so they are highly motivated to leave a review. If you’ve had an average to above averagely good time the chances are you can’t be arsed to leave a review. Because feedback takes effort.  Secondly, let’s say you DID notice a couple of things they could have done better. There is no universal rule that says “if you give constructive feedback you’ll look like a dick” …. But most of the time this is the thing we fear.  Even worse we might hurt someone’s feelings.  Hideous prospect. So keep in mind most customers don’t really want to give feedback. And the ones that do may be angry with you… or they might just be dicks.

With that in mind… how do we get meaningful feedback from customers we actually want to do repeat business with…?

Before we dive in I think it’s worth understanding the difference between debriefing internally and debriefing with a customer.

To explain why let’s imagine a scenario.

You’ve just landed at the international airport of your choice. The captain greets you as you disembark.  And they say “thanks for flying with us.  Do you have any debrief points on my approach into Preveza?  Is there anything you would have done differently?”

You’d be forgiven for feeling a bit alarmed. You might be thinking…Doesn’t the pilot know what they are doing?”

This highlights the crucial difference between an internal debriefing and a customer facing debrief. Remember the customer has hired you to do a job. They want to feel reassured that you are totally qualified to do that job competently. So we need to retain an air of authority.

For that reason you can’t just copy and paste your team debrief format to your customer facing debrief.

Luckily I’ve been researching the customer debrief too.  Full disclosure -   I’m still fairly new to this customer-facing mindset.  In my 21 years of service in the RAF I don’t remember being particularly commercially minded. We didn’t think about profit and loss or income streams. And, for reasons which I hope are obvious, we definitely didn’t think about how to drive repeat business.   But perhaps because of that I’m eager to learn, I have a fresh perspective and I’m open trial and error. Here’s what I’ve figured out so far.

THE CUSTOMER DEBRIEF

Let’s go back to our airline pilot. You might hear them say:

“Thank you for flying with us.

Is there anything we could do to make your experience more comfortable next time.”

This works on 2 levels.

First of all you’re showing you genuinely care and are committed to them having a great experience.

Secondly, you can plant the seed for repeat business.

Which brings me on to your WHY. In my team debrief blog the first question we considered was; WHY are we doing the debrief in the first place?  This is crucial to shape how we go about debriefing and the same principle applies to debriefing with our customers.  So lets’ revisit our WHY here.

Here are some of my reasons for seeking customer feedback.

• So they feel loved. (Because I want to be great to work with)
• So I can refine my client avatar. (If we aren’t a great fit for each other it’s better we both figure that out sooner rather than later. If we are a great fit then I’ve got a good idea where to look for future prospects)
• So I can improve my product (so that I deliver the results I’ve promised, add tons of value and because of this I can attract more business)
• So I can drive repeat business

My No1 priority is “so they feel loved”.  Partly because it feels good to show you genuinely care about others. It’s a much nicer way to do business.  But it’s also a smart way to do business.  Because if they feel loved, they’ll want to work with me again and they’ll probably say nice things about me to other people, which will drive more business.  And who doesn’t like repeat business?

Remember giving and receiving feedback is often a bit uncomfortable and requires efforts so it’s worth working out WHY the juice is worth the squeeze.  It will help you stay the course. It will also inform HOW you go about debriefing.

Which leads me to the next question.

HOW to go about the debrief itself…?

Well here’s my golden rule.

Make it about THEM, not you.

For a few reasons….

-It is a lot less scary for a client to answer honestly if you make it about their experience than if you say ‘so how do you think I did.”

-It shows you genuinely care about THEM.

And, quite frankly, it’s not really about you anyway.

After all my clients don’t really care that I spent years conquering my fear before I could cure my nervous Elvis leg on stage.  (Unless my talk is about helping you overcome Elvis leg) Or that I craft my slides in keynote and then convert them to powerpoint.   Or that I like to rehearse my speeches at 10am in the morning (when I’m on my A game) whilst pacing up and down my kitchen staring into the mirror.  ITS NOT ABOUT ME nor is it about HOW I deliver the result. It’s about ACTUALLY delivering the result they’re paying me for. This is why I base my debriefs on the INTENT v IMPACT framework.  I previously wrote about the gap between intent and impact and how we measure it; We need to remember that just because we WANT something to land a certain way (INTENT) does not mean it will actually land that way (IMPACT).

Simply put:

INTENT (what does the client want you to do for them/what problem do they want you to solve)

IMPACT (what did you actually do for the client/how well did you solve their problem for them)

If we want to offer genuine value to our customers (so that they feel valued and so that we can drive repeat business) we need to be committed to narrowing the gap between intent and impact. The debrief is a great way to do this.

In other words, the debrief can be used to determine if you delivered the result you promised.

And the sharp-eyed will no doubt see that you can only do that if you know what the desired result was in the first place.

A good debrief starts with a good brief.

This is why a debrief is much more successful when it is preceded with a decent brief and set up. And it’s why my discovery call will focus on their desired outcomes (INTENT). For example I’ll ask:

What’s the theme for the event?  Why is this important to you?

This often helps you work out what problem you’re helping them to solve.  If theme of the event is resilience it might be because people are facing a lot of uncertainty. Therefore a successful outcome might be to arm people with tools so they can feel confident facing that uncertainty.

From that I can deduce that my desired impact is to leave people feeling resourced to deal with uncertainty and I can craft my service/product around that.  I could use further probing questions like “what would get in the way of achieving that objective (of people feeling confident facing uncertainty?” I might learn that there is a culture where people don’t feel they can question when something is ambiguous.  So I can come up with tools to help people find the courage to speak up more.   

Then I can use the debrief to determine if I hit the mark and delivered on my promise.

You can probably see there is an appreciable amount of preparatory work that goes into a successful debrief. Committing to a customer debrief demonstrates that you are committing to understanding their problem and helping them to solve it. You’re committing to delivering the impact they are paying you for.

This is why I think debriefing isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.

It’s also during this stage I can set the expectation for a debrief to follow our engagement. I’ve got into the habit of signposting this early on when we discuss how I like to work. 

Eg “so I can make sure I am accountable for delivering the results you expected I always offer a chance to give feedback.  Someone in my team will reach out after the event to set up a debrief call.”

Then after the event the email will look something like this.

“You may remember I mentioned that, as a commitment to delivering what you asked for, I always offer a follow up call after the event.  

This is not something you have to do, but something we wanted to offer, if you had any feedback you wanted to share.”

During the debrief I continue to use INTENT (what was the desired outcome) and IMPACT (what was the actual outcome) as my guide.

THE DEBRIEF

Let’s restate…. what was the objective (INTENT) of your event? What was my expected part in achieving that objective.

How did my talk/engagement contribute towards that outcome?  (IMPACT)

What could we do to improve on that outcome?

This might sound like a dangerous question to ask as you’re exposing where you’ve not delivered. Indeed for that reason I think it shows a genuine desire to be accountable.  But it also creates space for you to work with them further to continue to solve the problem. In our previous example, it might be that the client hadn’t realised there are other barriers in the way to achieving the desired impact. (A tendency for people to focus on things outside of their control) Or they might realise they’d identified the wrong problem in the first place. (Ie The problem isn’t uncertainty it’s a culture of working long hours and “being seen”). So I don’t think you need to feel like you’re throwing yourself on your sword here. You’re simply showing you’re committed to delivering the results they want and doing the investigative work that will help to achieve those results.

With that in mind you can also identify how to ensure the impact is enduring.

How will you reinforce the key messages from today to keep the momentum going? What might get in the way of you doing that. This might be where I can offer follow up support to help embed new behaviours that will help them deal with whatever they are dealing with.(FUTURE IMPACT)

Then you have an opportunity to scope out future opportunities to work together.  Yes, this is a little salesy and I have to steel myself to ask this question.  But as my good friend reminded me, “if you are able to help someone solve a problem you have an ethical responsibility to offer that help.”

So you might ask…

Are there any upcoming challenges you’re preparing for? Or that the industry is preparing for? (FUTURE INTENT)

Finally, I know there is so much that goes into an event - What could we do next time to make your life even easier? I like to throw this one in as an ongoing demonstration of my commmitment to being great to work with, making them feel loved, and of course, signposting that there will be a “next time.”

So there it is; My offering on the components of an effective customer debrief.   I’m using my business as a consultant and speaker as a vehicle to demonstrate these components. Your business might be different. You may have a slightly different why.  Or how you go about it might be a little different. But I hope this article will give you a chance to reflect on how you can gain and use customer feedback to improve your business. After all, good business is about solving problems for our customers so I hope these ideas will translate either way.

Before I go….there is a health warning.

Not all customer feedback is created equal.

Remember that airline pilot scenario? Imagine if, when I was greeted by the airline captain, and being of an aviation mindset, I decided to distil some unsolicited wisdom.

Qualified A380 pilot “Is there anything we could do to make your experience more comfortable next time”

Ex-helicopter pilot with 0 hours on Airbus who has never flown into Preveza. “I noticed you extended slightly on base leg there.  That could result in you having to overbank to achieve the centreline on approach.  Next time you could anticipate your turn a bit better.

I’m making this up of course, I’d NEVER say this. Why?

Well I may have 4000 hours of flying experience but that is a WORLD apart from flying an A330.  It would be entirely inappropriate for me to offer advice on how to do their job. And frankly it would be entirely inappropriate for them to take any advice I might give. The reason I pay money for British Airways to fly me somewhere (usually late if I’m honest) is because I can’t do it myself.

The same is true for your customers. They are paying for your services because they need you to be the expert and do for them what they can’t do for themselves. If they offer feedback on their experience with you, pay attention.  If they start telling your how to do your job, personally, I’d just smile and nod.

You’ve got this.

Key takeaways.

• Customers can be reluctant to give constructive feedback - making it about their experience can make it less scary and shows you genuinely care about them.
• It’s good business to work out what the desired result is up front (INTENT)
• It’s great business to determine if you achieved the desired result (IMPACT)
• The customer debrief can help you do this.
• Then you can work together achieve even better results in the future.

Sarah Furness is a keynote speaker specialising in leadership, performance and resilience “under fire.”

This article gives an overview on what it’s like to work with her; She’s not just going to turn up and tell (hilarious)helicopter stories. She’ll work with you to find out what challenges you’re facing, what problems you need to solve and how she can help you solve them. And she’ll hold herself accountable to that too.  🙌 If you’re interested in working with her please reach out sarah@sarahfurness.com

If you have any debrief points on working with Sarah previously please send them to wingman@sarahfurness.com

We’d love to hear from you.