I’ve been corresponding with a publisher about a potential partnership around a project. One of the representatives and I have been emailing back and forth. I noticed, on the first email she sent me, something about her signature block that was quite unique.

Below her name were these words:

How’s my driving?

If you are satisfied with my customer service, please send a reply to this email (and a link was provided)

If you are not satisfied with my customer service, please send a reply to this email (a different link was supplied).

———–

What’s great about this is not just that it’s soliciting feedback on customer service, but that the solicitation is immediate. I can give feedback on the representatives "driving" in almost "real time." This is good for her and good for me.

What’s even more brilliant about this idea is that it provides a way to provide feedback in the virtual world–which is fraught with horrible customer service and few channels with which a customer can express dis-satisfaction. On the email I received, the company–and its reps–decided to change this by giving people a way to give feedback AND a way to collect that feedback into trends and patterns. Perfect.

So much customer service feedback these days comes in the form of complaining to someone on the phone who is simply going to hang up and move on. But, this email system doesn’t allow things to fall between the "virtual cracks." The data is collected and speaks for itself.

Maybe we should all begin to ask our clients, in real time, "how’s my driving?"