Customer evidence 

Using Customer Evidence is perhaps one of the most effective ways of marketing to people who simply do not respond to your standard mailings.  It also helps to sort out any problems that users are experiencing with your products and enables you to put them to rights.

Customer Evidence deals with both successes and problems - and that is a major part of its strength.   

In terms of success, customers are encouraged to comment through interviews and questionnaires, the comments are noted, and the customers are helped to put these comments into a format which not only reflects their honest views, but does so in a way that is unique.   

As an example of this, many in-service training courses for teachers are advertised alongside teacher comments which say, "it was a very enjoyable day - we learned a lot."   Such comments are positive, but since most people running courses advertise using comments exactly like this, they are now of only limited use.  However, it is on occasion possible to encourage a school headteacher to rephrase such a comment, and you can end up with something that is much more useable: "I knew that we had had a stunning day's training when I found all the staff still discussing what they had learned two days later."

Customer evidence, however, does not ignore problems.  Where a customer reports that something is amiss a response should be evolved, and the Customer Evidence will now contain a very positive solution to a problem. 

In respect of problems the customer is encouraged to comment as thoroughly as possible so that the company can understand the very heart of the problem.  The customer is told that these comments will go straight back to the product development team who will endeavour to solve problems that can be solved, and will pass all comments on to the development team for the next edition / upgrade etc.  Where appropriate, suitable compensation is given to the customer.   Where changes can be made the customer is informed of these.

All that will seem perfectly normal - but then something extra happens.   Where a change or development can be made this information is then written up by the Customer Evidence team not as a problem relating to a specific customer who feels let down but as a solution to a broader problem that many may experience.

Typically this works with software (although it can  work elsewhere to).  Instead of saying "our software was cumbersome in handling two queries at once and would often crash" the new approach is written up as "handling two queries at once has been a problem over a wide range of software.  Now however..."

Of course, using customer complaints as a way of improving your product is not ideal - and certainly goes against the rules and the spirit of ISO9000 standards - but, given that even the best product in the world gets customer complaints, it is probably the best use that can be made of customer complaints.