Feedback ranges from notifications of potential violations of law, policy, and procedures to comments and suggestions to general and specific information regarding performance and satisfaction. It may be collected informally, verbally, in writing, or online for all goods, services, or experience, including employment. Feedback benefits every entity, including corporations, partnerships, associations, joint-stock companies, unions, trusts, pension funds, unincorporated organizations, sole proprietorships, governments, and nonprofits. The ultimate purpose of all feedback is to achieve and sustain optimum performance and satisfaction, not to post a rating.

Feedback may be classified as macro or micro. We’ve used Rapid Cycle Feedback to collect multiple micro-feedback for every step of the recruiting process and airline travel.

We’re in a feedback crisis mainly because we’ve conflated feedback, social media, and advertising. Yelp, Facebook, and Google Reviews dominate the market, and although formidable, the regard for their reviews, which can easily be gamed, is waning. The lack of trust engenders worse and worse behavior from both organizations and consumers. We are all struggling with the purported idealism of social media and human nature as it is. But most pertinently, these giants and the lead-matching platforms, such as IAC’s Angi, are driven by advertising dollars and traffic. Feedback requires and deserves independence from other revenue models.

Many organizations are hungry for feedback and go to great lengths to acquire it when they want, how they want, and what they want. However, if organizations want to optimize the timeliness, quantity, and quality of notifications, comments, suggestions, and performance and satisfaction data, they must facilitate feedback when, how, and what people want.

The Feedback Index, based on the percentage of constituents from whom feedback is collected within 30 days of an event, interaction, or experience, indicates whether an organization is collecting sufficient information to make decisions.

Feedback is the fastest and most effective driver of optimum performance and satisfaction. Most organizations are unable to access a great deal of feedback. It’s there; much of it is good, but they don’t know how to tap it. Negative feedback is like steam. If you don’t give it a place to go, it explodes and burns people and organizations, most likely badly. Negative feedback, effectively managed, turns dissatisfaction into avid promotion.

The burden of collecting and analyzing feedback, even if you don’t respond to it, has been an understandable reason not to seek it. But now, research-based technology dramatically improves feedback and decreases the demands on organizations and people.

We are all wary of getting performance feedback. But it’s always better to know, and invariably, organization leaders new to feedback done right are surprised by the amount of good and thoughtful reviews.

After all, feedback, when done correctly, makes everything better.

Look 1^st has packages for every organization.

Protect. Engage. Optimize.