Businesses spend tens of millions of dollars every year in promoting themselves in the form of advertising dollars when there is an inexpensive tool at their disposal that is being underutilized, if it's being used at all. The tool? Customer feedback.

If you don't know what customer feedback is, you should. It's one of the surest ways of knowing beyond a doubt that your company is meeting customer needs and doing what you promise to do every day. You can think you're doing a good job and not realize that you're off target until profits have dropped and you've lost market share to a competitor who's more in tune with what your customers want than you are.

While nobody wants to hear negative comments, it's better to hear about it early while you're still in a position to do something about it. For instance, if you introduce new services designed to improve relations with customers and the customers don't like those services, your marketing plan has bombed. Isn't it better to know exactly what your customers think than make your best guess which, if wrong, could cost your company potentially millions of dollars and the good graces of the people who pay your salary?

In contrast, all feedback isn't negative. Many customers will sing your praises from the rooftop of the tallest building they can find if they're only given a chance. By giving them an outlet, you can learn what you're doing right. By knowing what you do well, you can save yourself the trouble and the embarrassment of possibly changing something your customers like. This will free you up to correct genuine deficiencies your organization could have.

There's an added benefit to knowing what your customers think, especially if it's good. The opinion of your current and past customers is going to carry a lot of weight with a customer who may be perched on a fence of indecision of whether to do business with you or your competitor. By hearing about a positive experience a customer had with your company, it could very well drop an undecided customer onto your side of the fence as a paying customer. Since paying customers bring their checkbooks, this will have a positive impact on your bottom line.