listening
Being a bank holiday in the UK this past week, I was afforded the rare opportunity to finally try a restaurant in my neighbourhood tailored to American style breakfasts. Normally there is an absurd line out the door of this restaurant – mostly of other ex-Pats seeking a reprieve from the otherwise hearty British breakfast of black pudding, bake beans and sausage. But on this weekend, most of London retreats to warmer locations. As I sat and relaxed – enjoying my filtered coffee and huevos rancheros, I spotted a number of large yellow stickers smattered across the other business along the Camden Passage. The sticker said ‘We are listening.’ I immediately thought ‘that is brilliant’ (borrowing a term from my current homeland). Were these stickers a way for business to show that they are actually listening to their customers and acting upon that feedback?

Unfortunately upon further review the sticker was really to denote that the store was listening to a certain UK radio station, but it made me think about signalling that companies are listening to customers. I believe there is a space for this visual or symbol.

It’s a core tactic of business and especially restaurants to display a sticker which promotes their community reviews from the likes of Yelp, Top Table or Zagat. These stickers instantaneously help us, as potential patrons to filter through the hundreds if not thousands of businesses, products and services out there. Since these stickers are awarded to business that receive high consumer ratings and those ratings tend to come from other likeminded individuals, it is as if our peers our providing us a recommendation on the spot.

What if there was a visual way for these businesses to show potential patrons that they are not only liked by past patrons but that they proactively solicit feedback from their customers, they understand what customers are saying and they have acted upon that feedback. It would show that they were truly listening.

 

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