Last summer my family had a chance to travel to western Canada and one of the outstanding places we had the opportunity to visit was the Columbia Icefields in northern Alberta – just south of Jasper. Truly an awesome part of our great country.

Years ago we decided that wherever we travelled we would collect small photographic fridge magnets to commemorate the many stops along our travels. Resultant when we were at the Icefields I looked for a Fridge Magnet for our collection.

However, in the vast selection of magnets at the souvenir shop there were none that showed the Icefield. There were lots of animals, other local attractions, generic Alberta, but none of the Icefields.

When I enquired of staff if they had any, they apologized and told me that they received a shipment only once each week and they always ran out of the Icefield magnets before the next shipment.

What an interesting commentary on the company. Here the front line staff knew exactly what the problem was, yet either no one had asked them, they had not been encouraged to provide this input, or worse, they has already provided this input and it had been ignored.

If feedback is not actively solicited and expected, then you are missing a huge insight into your customers needs. In addition to making input a central part of your culture, make sure that as part of your research plans you are building in a process to gather this input.

Cheers!