Opening your doors for the first time is not only “open for business”, but it should be “open for feedback”. The quicker you learn what your new customers like, love or want to see improved, the faster they become loyal customers. Listening to your customers might be the most important thing you can do to get your offering and customer experience right… fast.
The Growler Guys recently opened their 12th location in Reno, Nevada. They offer a huge selection of craft beers on tap, growler fills and even food at some locations. While The Growler Guys have been using GatherUp to manage their customer experience and online reviews for years, they specifically set out to use our TextBack feature to open the Reno location this month.
Customer Feedback From The Start
Mark Knowles is part of the ownership group of The Growler Guys and took notice of TextBack when it was released. He saw the ease of use for the customer to offer feedback and the win for them to listen and collect customer information.
“Our work with GatherUp enabled us to lower the barrier to customer feedback during our grand opening in Reno, Nevada. Our store openings are high energy as we take in more than a thousand people. The thoughtful text feedback method from GatherUp made it so easy for folks to participate. This provided us with immediate feedback during an extremely busy time when it can be a challenge to get everything right.” commented Knowles.
An Easy And Powerful Feedback Channel – Text/SMS
The Growler Guys printed up a few signs for in-store display and business cards that directed customers to text the keyword “Feedback” to the Reno store’s TextBack number. The business cards made it easy for any of the staff working to ask the customer to give their feedback right from their own phone.
Because it was a grand opening, they made adjustments to the settings of their request mode (Ultimate). They turned off asking for a 3rd-party review on Google and just focused on listening to the customer. It wasn’t about gathering reviews, it was about knowing if they were getting the customer experience right.
Since they were not asking for an online review, they also rewarded the customer with $3 off their next growler by linking out to a coupon at the end of the feedback process. (NOTE: Incentivizing feedback or a survey is OK to do. Incentivizing an online review is NOT, it’s illegal.)
Off To A Great Start
The grand opening produced feedback from 50 customers, helping Mark and the team understand what went right and what could be improved. They also got a nice start on their marketing list.
The snapshot below is of the Customer Activity screen and shows just some of the feedback they received. Customers loved the beer (of course!), the food, and the staff. Customers also offered some great suggestions worth considering including trash bin placement, non-alcoholic drink options, and some specific beer styles. These are powerful details to understand your customers, their experience and how you are delivering.
Now that this location is open and initial tweaks are being made thanks in part to the customer feedback they received using TextBack, The Growler Guys will continue to use GatherUp to capture customer feedback, generate and monitor online reviews, and market their customer experiences on their website. They will also expand their use of TextBack to include more locations and new marketing collateral (beer coasters and signage) to promote TextBack and encourage customers to give their feedback.
This use case for GatherUp was a fun one to work on with Mark and his team. They clearly get that the customer’s voice is everything… especially at the start when you can fix things right away and then deliver more 5-star experiences moving forward.
