At the Hunter Conference, years ago, a speaker (I forget who) talked about how to get useful feedback. He discussed how asking “how is everything” normally will get the response: “fine” (which is often that is exactly what the staff wants so they can move on without wasting any time). However, if you really want to improve that doesn’t help.

He explained how he worked with Disney to improve their restaurants. Using the “how is everything” question had not alerted the restaurant to any issues. So he visited the tables with the manager and asked - “What one thing could we do to improve?” Over 50% of the people said the rolls were stale: clear information that is actionable. And in fact they were able to adjust the system to remove that problem. A small thing, in this case, but a clear example of a good method to help target improvement.

To encourage useful feedback, specifically give the customer permission to mention something that could be improved. What one thing could we do better?

This post was sparked by Seth’s post: This must be hard. I think he was on the right track, but I think the results could be even better using a question like: what one thing could we do better?

Related: Usability Failures - CEO Flight Attendant - customer focus blog posts