When you browse the web you do not have to wait, eyeballs peeled through the advertising break. The savvy user can even block out billboards as they roam. This always make me want to ask the people from the marketing departments I meet to talk about social stuff where their feedback department is? When I research a topic and find people expressing a strong opinion it generally has to do with their personal expectation or disappointment. Neither is the preserve of the marketing department, whose hyperbole tells you what to expect and never listens to your opinion. The person who takes the time to offer coherent thoughts will usually have ideas as to how a product or service may suit them better or how it could be improved. Admittedly people like this are as rare as habitable planets in the galaxy but at least when you find them the web makes them easier to reach. A large part of my research involves finding those places where people do talk about things that interest them. Reading their discussions makes me wonder: why deal with marketing departments at all? These opinions are most relevant to the people who thought up the original idea, ironed out design problems and solved engineering conundrums. It's relevant to the people who will work on the next iteration, not to the people who are responsible for pushing out a message. When you create a product or service you're asking people a question: is this useful? Your answer comes back through sales but you may wish for a more refined perspective. You may even wish to ask: will this work? The more research and development conducted in a consultative and collaborative process, in an open way, the less need for an online marketing campaign; the online conversation becomes self-sustaining. Don't shout in the echo chamber, cultivate people with feedback and create a loop. So where is the feedback department that filters the answers? Is it the marketing department I should be speaking to or customer services? Or now we have tools of mass communication is it no department at all but everyone who contributes to the product and service, users included?

1 original comment:

I agree with your comments Mark. I have become increasingly frustrated that feedback seems to only hinge around the quality of service when goods are bought and delivered i.e “quick delivery”, staff have a good manner on the phone….” etc. I have a great deal of difficulty finding feedback about the goods I might wish to buy. Are they reliable?, do they do the job they are expected to do? etc etc. I have no idea how to go about finding this information. Does anyone have any ideas. For instance I want to buy a dust extractor for my woodwork shop. There are hundreds out there but which one will do the job I want or more precisely how do I eliminate those that are not suitable?
Comment by Robert — 4 November, 2008 @ 12:43 pm