Collecting Feedback to Feedforward in Your Horse Business

If you haven’t noticed yet, most customers are pretty quiet about what they’re thinking about your business and you. Unless there is a very significant problem, they let complaints slide just like you do when you get bad service somewhere.

And when they have a thought about what they’d like to have more of from you or an improvement to your business, they keep quiet about that too.

It’s like having a thought about packaging M&M’s in a re-sealable bag to eliminate spillage. You wonder if anyone at Mars, Inc. would read your e-mail or take your call about the idea. Ah, forget about it, nobody listens.

Soliciting feedback is important and it requires asking a lot of questions. Questions start conversations and idea exchange.

How do you feel about the extra balance work we did in your lesson today?

Is the training work we did with your horse last month helping you feel better about your ride?

Is your horse happier and more relaxed in the stall we moved him to last week?

Equally important is soliciting feedforward. Feedback is about the past. It’s a score card for what happened. The additional challenge is getting the ideas and thoughts from your customer on how to improve what your business offers in the future.

I mean collecting thoughts like:

I wish I knew more about stretching exercises that will help my riding.

I’d love to see a video of my riding lesson with you adding additional comments as you watch it- like football players review game films.

My horse takes advantage of me on the ground with bad manners all the time. Is it possible to do a mini class in how to correct bad manners?

Customer thoughts about the present are your feedforward for more offerings.

Ask, listen, act.

I’ve got a question for you. When are you going to get those boots on and get to work asking more questions?

Profitable Horseman has a Facebook business page where tips on operating a horse business are posted daily. All you need to do is hit like!

Until next time, keep your head up and your heels down.

Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business.

Visit his website:  www.ProfitableHorseman.com for more articles like this one and to subscribe to his free electronic newsletter about being profitable in the horse business.