Top 3 barriers to getting really great feedback

In the market for some feedback? Great! You can always turn to the usual suspects: email, surveys, or even a face-to-face chat.

Still, many are finding that the outlets they’ve traditionally leveraged to garner feedback, don’t circumvent or eliminate the social and cultural barriers that prevent them from consistently yielding useful insights.

Being in the feedback business, I speak to people everyday who share stories about their quest for feedback and the key challenges they face.

Based on these stories I’ve compiled the top 3 for your viewing pleasure, along with insights about how we at Rypple seek to address them:

Ego

The Barrier: You want totally honest and candid feedback, but many people are simply not comfortable giving critical feedback face-to-face, over email or in any other forum where they can be identified. Interestingly, many say that the fear of internalizing critical feedback  is a key reason why people don’t ask for it in the first place!

Why Rypple?: By allowing advisers to submit feedback anonymously, they can feel completely comfortable about sharing their thoughts. It also reduces the amount of emotional capital you need to ante up in order to request the feedback.

Speed & Scope

The Barrier: So your big event just concluded and you want to know what the highlight was for your attendees. How quickly and easily can you capture their sentiments? Ego and anonymity aside, if all you’re after is a quick snapshot of what people think, is that worth setting up a whole survey? Would people have the patience to fill it out? How will you make sense of all the data you collect? Would you even have contact information for everyone in your target audience? Get the idea?!?

Why Rypple?: By allowing you to:

• setup one-question feedback requests
• distribute them quickly via email, Facebook, Twitter, your blog/website, etc. and
• allowing advisers to respond easily via the web or wireless device,

keeping your finger on the pulse of your audience has never been easier! (Don’t believe me? Tell me what you thought of this blog post by clicking HERE…see, and I don’t even know who you are!)

Brevity

The Barrier: Pop quiz! You’re waiting by the elevator to head home for the day when a colleague approaches and says “Hey! Can I get your thoughts on something?“. The first thought that pops into your head is:

1. “I’m honored that someone values my opinion enough to ask for my feedback!”
2. “Sure! I’m totally cool with hanging out by the elevator and having a long chat about whatever this person wants!”
3. “Arggg!!! How long is this going to take?!?”

If you chose 3, you’re not alone. The truth is, people really do want to be helpful, but these days everyone is super-busy and many simply don’t have time to engage in long chat, never-ending email thread, or lengthy survey.

Why Rypple?: Rypple’s “one question at a time” methodology combined with a fixed character limit for both questions and responses promotes brevity. That way, regardless of what end you’re on, everyone will recognize that a Rypple transaction will always be quick, focused, and easy (even if you happen to suffer from L.E.S.!).

So the next time you’re in need of some quick feedback for yourself, your team, or your business, think about whether or not circumventing some or all of these barriers will help you get the real insights you’re looking for!