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Sometimes it is difficult to get customers, distributors or employees to give you feedback about your products.  Most people are not very creative and have little to say unless provoked or prodded by others’ comments.  Hearing complaints from others normally gets the flow going.  Try some of these ‘false’ complaints (untrue, maybe prior problems but are still possible?).

False complaints to provoke feedback, related or not:

1. False Complaint #1: We heard that some of the customers do not prefer our product in the current tan color.  Have you heard that?  Reaction:  The employee will say, “I have not heard that as much as I have heard that they do not like the smell of that particular one, not the color.” Note that the reaction you get may very well lead to other issues about the product that you may want to pursue.
2. False Complaint #2: Apparently our distributors are hearing complaints about our packaging?  Have you heard those as well?  Reaction:  The employee will say, “I do know that the packaging was not sturdy enough at first, but that problem has been taken care of.  Now we are hearing complaints about the stickers that are hard to get off the product.  This has led to a lot of product returns from disgusted customers.” Note the answer might lead to another problem the company must address.
3. False Complaint #3: A couple of customers have apparently complained that our pricing is too high.  We are worried about this.  What are you hearing if anything?  Reaction:  Distributors or employees or sales reps might say, “Your pricing might be high for some, but I hear far more people complain about how long it takes to get a quote from you guys.  I hear this constantly and nothing about the price level.” Note:  Pricing might not be the issue at all, but a response time issue that can be resolved very quickly and inexpensively.
4. False Complaint #4: I was told we are having problems with deliveries after five?  Is that true or were those isolated incidents?  Employees might respond, “We had problems with the driver getting there on time but that was because the trucks have not been serviced as they were scheduled and the truck broke down twice in the same week going to the same customer.  We may not need a new driver as we most likely just need to change the service station assigned to monitoring the fleet for maintenance.  We are paying a lot of money but no one is assigned to talking to them.” Note:  You do not have a driver problem.  You have a maintenance problem.
5. False Complaint #5: I will not divulge my source but someone reportedly perturbed a few customers during some sales demonstrations.  Do you know about this and do you have any idea what we can do to fix this problem?  An employee might respond, “I thought we had problems with employees demonstrating our product to the customer, but the employees told me privately that all three demo units are faulty and production people are now afraid this engineering problem is more widespread in existing inventory than anyone originally thought.  The complaints stemmed from our bad product and we do not know how widespread this problem actually runs within our current stock level.  Is that what you are referring to?”  This lead to a far greater problem even imagined.
6. False Complaint #6: I have heard a few employees complain about working overtime on Saturdays.  Are we having problems scheduling employees to work?  A manager might respond, “The couple of complaints you might be talking about stemmed from a supervisor ordering employees to work on a weekend a couple of times and then when they showed up, pressuring them and insisting they do some work for his personal company while still on our payroll.  When one refused, he privately threatened to stop their annual pay increase.  We already took care of this.  That supervisor was terminated.  How did you find out about this?  This was supposed to be confidential and not to be discussed.” Note that the initial comment never mentioned anything other than a vague comment about employee complaints, nothing in detail.

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