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The Colonel may have just done it again! He may have developed a new “Secret Recipe” – this time one that you can steal and use for yourself.
Sometimes you’ve got to look in unusual places to find golden nuggets of wisdom and insight. Frankly, I never would have guessed that I would find one of them at KFC.

But that’s exactly what happened.
To be honest, I didn’t actually find this particular golden nugget. One of my client’s did. But it was such a great find that I thought I would share it with you.

I was having a strategic discussion with a client recently where we were discussing topics such as leadership, vision, hiring great people and giving team members performance feedback. It was a typical strategy session where we would dive deep into the topic, come up with 1 or 2 great ideas to implement, assign some follow up actions then move to the next subject.

As we began talking about the team member feedback my client jumped up and said “on yea, I found something the other day that you’ve just got to see”. As he flipped through a large stack of documents I grew more curious about his “find”. Finally he declared “I found it!” and pulled out a single sheet of paper that looked to be a page from a kids writing tablet.

On the front side in large, bold handwritten print were the words “Feed Us Back”. On the back side were several questions with multiple choice answers and check boxes – like a survey – but all in hand writing script. Around the words were pictures, drawn by school-aged kids, of martians, clouds, pacman, a happy lady and a sad lady. It truly looked like an elementary school quiz form.

It took me a minute but after reading a couple questions and answers it was clear that this was a very clever approach to a customer feedback document!

KFC had decided that rather than try to coerce and solicit customer feedback in a more traditional way – with a formal survey, or a “chance to win” bribe, or a telephone survey, they would take a new and different approach – to be more playful and fun with their process.

Very clever!
Most customers aren’t willing to take the time to complete your boring survey. They know that the odds of winning your prize are hardly worth the effort. So as a result, most business owners simply don’t ask. They assume they won’t get much response – so why bother?

But let me ask you, if YOU were asked to give feedback on THESE questions would you be more likely to take the time to answer them?

Did the food:

Make you drool ___ Make you yawn ___

Did you get your order:

At light speed ___ At a snail’s pace ___

and my favorite,

Was the food:

Hot like a super model ___ Cold like an ex-girlfriend ___

I’ll bet you would even take time to fill out the KFC survey. Actually, it’s FUN and DIFFERENT. It’s a bit irreverent and very playful. I think that’s what makes it something of a “secret recipe”.

Take out your customer feedback survey. What do your questions look like? Oh, I forgot, you don’t even have one!

But if you did, I’ll bet your best customer would be bored to death answering your questions – am I right?

Maybe it’s time for you to step out of the norm, be different, have some fun, be playful and engage your customers in a way they rarely see in business today.
Lighten up! Do something different. Poke a little fun at yourself and your customers will appreciate and applaud you.

Go ahead, steal this “secret recipe” from KFC. I’m sure the Colonel won’t mind. You still can’t make fried chicken the way he does, so he’ll be good with it!

BONUS EXTRA: If you read this far and you’re willing to send me a copy of your customer feedback, I’ll pick the most clever one, highlight it and give you a $100 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble Bookstore (so you can get even smarter at running your business). I DARE YOU!

Ride Hard,

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