News To Use

Welcome to the May 2007 edition of ChamberExpress™ News to Use. Our goal:  provide ideas, information and news to help chambers of commerce succeed online.

In This Edition

1. Best Practice:  Criticism - Get Some Lemonade From Those Lemons
2. Tools of the Trade:  Surveys Gather Priceless Feedback
3. News from ChamberExpress™:  Sky King Didn’t Lie to Penny

1. Best Practice:  Criticism - Get Some Lemonade From Those Lemons

One quality that makes good companies into great companies is the ability to handle critical feedback.  If your company is receiving criticism about its website, below are some tips on taking the opportunity to turn the situation into a positive one.

• Thank the commenter for their time to share their thoughts. Thanking the commenter shows that you take feedback seriously.
• Learn from the comments. What are they trying to say with their criticism? Take a moment to consider their comments and determine if what they are saying is true.
• Correct your mistakes.  If there is a problem with your website, make sure you correct it as soon as possible.  Depending on how critical it is to the function of your site, you may even want to post a note on the homepage informing clients/customers the issue(s) is being corrected.
• Take the criticism seriously, not personally.  Handling criticism as a subjective opinion with a solution rather than a personal rebuke will help your company grow, build better relationships and, ultimately, become more successful. 

* Excerpted from an online article at www.netscape.com.

 2. Tools of the Trade:  Surveys Gather Priceless Feedback

An online survey of your customers can help you determine if your website is doing a good job in meeting their needs.  In fact, survey tools from ChamberExpress, SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang and others make gathering feedback an easy and free (or low cost) exercis. Below are 10 quick guidelines on structuring an online survey for your customers.

1. Determine what you are trying to find out about your website and structure questions accordingly.  In most cases, your company will want to know about usability (was navigation easy, did you find what you were looking for, etc.) and design (are the pages easy to read, did pages load quickly, etc.)
2. Have a short introduction at the beginning and use plenty of headings and white space.
3. Avoid drop-down boxes since they can be difficult to navigate; use check boxes instead.
4. Number your questions so that people don't get lost.
5. Make your questions concise and to the point, for example, “How easy was the site to navigate?”
6. Use yes/no or closed end questions; avoid having customers “check all that apply.”
7. If you must use open-ended questions, use them sparingly, for the sake of your time and the customer’s time.
8. Put important questions near the top.
9. Keep the survey under 5 to 10 minutes to complete.
10. Thank customers at the end for taking the survey and let them know it is over.

Most importantly, if you decide to survey your customers about your website, make sure that you take any feedback seriously and then take steps to correct or make changes to your site based on the feedback.

* Compiled from information from various online articles.

3. News from ChamberExpress™:  Sky King Didn’t Lie to Penny

My favorite show when I was a child, bar none, was Sky King. Every week, Sky King defied the odds, trounced the bad guys and served as a model for his pretty blonde niece, Penny. One thing about Sky King: he was a straight shooter. He messed up once in a while, and he came clean with Penny every time. In my book, he was a real leader.

Today, aside from the brave men and women serving our country and the police and firemen who protect our communities, we don’t have many of the Sky King/hero type. Listen to rap music. No heroes there. Check out the evening news. Hard to find any there. And look inside most businesses. Almost none.

As we examine why leadership has taken it on the chin, a key factor is the inability leaders demonstrate to tell their own truth, no matter how painful. Most think withholding the real truth is in fact part of the leadership equation. We’ve come to accept misleading as an important arrow in the leader’s quiver of tricks. And that is precisely why trust, integrity and loyalty are at all time lows. In fact, according to Hudson Human Capital Partners, a leading source of data on the contemporary workplace, more than 75% of the white collar population would leave their jobs today.

In our cynical times, the most effective leaders lead with humility. They lead by inspiration. And they inspire by putting themselves truthfully in front of those they are tasked with leading. This doesn’t mean we share our boxer short sizes with the gang at work. It does mean our own vulnerability is the catalyst for respect and extraordinary results. I’d give high marks to the team leader who shares truthfully with her bunch the fact that she messed up in a similar effort once before, and that she needs the collective help of the team to ensure the mistakes that took place previously are avoided.

That kind of sharing is human. It places her imperfections right on the table. And others feel comfortable supporting her. If she came across as the Corporate America Super Businesswoman we see in so many ads and movies, the results would be typically dubious.

Sky King was a fictitious character, the product of a good producer and a network willing to sell the show to advertisers. But the figure Sky King represents in my mind is the kind of person who is willing to place himself or herself in the arena authentically; to view challenges realistically in terms of “it is what it is” instead of what it should be. And they move ahead by inspiring instead of punishing.

Sky King honored Penny, his friends and his community by telling his truth. I think he had it right.

*Adapted from Jack Schreitmueller (www.resoluteconsultingroup.com)