Martha Brooke on pandemic-era customer experience research

"Clients are looking for meaningful information from their customers about what they expect and what they perceive and what's going on in the world." ~Martha Brooke Martha Brooke is back with more sage advice for survey-wary CEOs. A lot has changed in the world since I last chatted with the founder of Interaction Metrics way back in 2019. This time, she's sharing valuable insights around pandemic-era company reviews and translating data into actionable improvements.   "[COVID19 is] just such a sea-change that will affect us forevermore. Some things, we're not going back to and, so, this is just a great time to find out: how do we set new strategies that continue to raise the bar on sales and on employee performance?" While some businesses are suffering through pandemic fatigue, Martha and her team are busy compiling data-driven answers for companies willing to ask the correct questions. She, like her clients, is after evidence; details not spilt over cordial lunches (remember those?) or friendly customer service calls. No one's going to provide the intel your business needs to thrive in today's climate over lunch, no matter how honest the conversation.  *** Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.    http://www.distributionteam.com This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.  Connect with Jason Bader on LinkedIn. Connect with Martha Brooke on LinkedIn. *** Candor comes from open-ended inquiries and double-blind collection instead; well crafted, expertly analyzed information, organized by an unbiased third party. "One of the reasons to work with a customer experience research company like mine is, we don't give a damn," says Martha. "We're just there to report the evidence." Too often, owners shy away from the kind of evidence Martha uncovers. They fear answers that require complicated solutions. Sure, customers do come back with pie-in-the-sky requests ("create an app!" "open a branch closer to me!"). More often, Martha says the feedback leads to small tweaks companies can undertake in hours, not months. Additionally, she points out that customers will only continue wanting more from you, a byproduct of the information-rich times in which we live. Best to implement low-hanging changes and get ahead of the curve while planning for those long-term improvements. Owners looking at this year's bottom line for excuses to delay customer intelligence-gathering might want to rethink that game plan. Martha suggests repurposing survey information to extend the cost benefits. The data, she says, has myriad uses: on marketing collateral, your website, and social media channels. "Not all data is worth gathering but... surveys are not expensive." And the investment can establish essential baselines for post-COVID strategies.   Listen in to Martha's first appearance on Distribution Talk here. Get Interaction Metric's Five Standards For Excellent Customer Listening here.   MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Peter Drucker Five Standards for Excellent Customer Listening   CONNECT WITH MARTHA BROOKE: Interaction Metrics [email protected] LinkedIn