The Importance of Feedback: How Clients and Employees Shape Business Strategy

In a business context, feedback is constructive information and opinions about your work or your company. Feedback can be both positive and negative, specific and general. It can be about your projects, your quality, your employees, or your services. Because it is nebulous, feedback also can be something that companies are cautious about procuring. They may feel trepidation about hearing something they perceive as “bad” or may be unclear on the best avenue to gather it, and so, it doesn’t get done. This leaves Information about the company unaddressed and ungathered. This is risky behavior, especially when you head into a strategic planning effort.

If you are only going to do two things to address strategic growth, get feedback from your clients and your employees. Both are certain to contribute to sustained success. 

But how does it contribute, and foundationally, how do you gather it?

How to Gather Client Feedback

There are several ways to gather client feedback, running the gamut from formal systems-generated feedback to personal client interviews and discussions. Formal systems include specific software or online platforms that follow business rules that you’ve established. These systems may integrate with other platforms your company uses and either trigger automatically following your business rules or are administered by a member of your organization. Interviews on the other hand are personal interactions. They can be done with in-house staff or with consultants acting as an independent third party. Feedback can also be gathered more anonymously, which is helpful for more broad brand recognition feedback, but to do this successfully, anonymous client feedback must be gathered by a consultant.

If you are starting a strategic plan and do not have feedback at your fingertips, start the feedback process with client interviews. Don’t overcomplicate it. For strategic planning purposes, stick to questions in these categories:

• Overall satisfaction

• Service quality

• Value perception

• Areas of improvement

• Future direction

Remember to ask to interview clients that won’t just tell you what you want to hear. Pick a handful that you’d like to work with more frequently or that have had some challenges in the past. The only way to really identify opportunities is to look at both sides of the coin.

How to Gather Employee Feedback

Employee feedback is just as important. Remember that the S and the W in a SWOT analysis are internal categories. Gathering employee perspective on how the company really runs helps you see the whole picture.

Similar to client feedback, employee feedback can be gathered more systematically through employee surveys at regular intervals or through industry organizations like Great Places To Work. Companies can also use an internal survey administered through their human resources department or leadership team through tools like Survey Monkey or Google. When soliciting employee feedback, it is important that the survey be anonymous. 

For the purposes of strategic planning, you’ll want to ask questions that dig into:

• Job satisfaction

• Company culture

• Growth opportunities

• Work environment

• Leadership

An important part of this employee feedback gathering is the loop, though. If you ask employees to complete a survey, make sure you report on the results and how the company will address what it has learned.

How to Use What You Have Gathered

With feedback in hand, leaders are well-prepared to go into a strategic planning session. Take a healthy approach to analyzing what you’ve learned. Don’t sugar coat it. Try to remember that feedback exists whether you ask for it or not, so use all your will power to approach the feedback objectively. It’s not good or bad – it’s just feedback.

Group and prioritize what you’ve learned. With strategic plans, you need to address the most important strategies for growth, but you cannot dilute your efforts by tackling everything. Include the most important items that will help your company sustain growth.

Once you’ve decided which insights to prioritize, define actionable strategies. Make a plan for how your priorities will be addressed and set clear goals for what you want to achieve. What does success look like? Don’t forget to think through the team members that will need to be involved in achieving your goals. Having strategies that cascade through the organization creates collective ownership, making your goals more likely to be achieved.  

For the future of your company, think about creating not only a culture of continuous improvement but also one that values feedback. Consistent feedback loops keep you on top of and engaged in your employee and client/customer journey and allows you to be more agile in addressing challenges or capitalizing on opportunities in your space.

Conclusion

Incorporating client and employee feedback into your strategic planning process is not just beneficial—it’s essential. By actively seeking and analyzing feedback, you gain valuable insights that drive informed decision-making and sustainable growth. Whether through structured surveys, client interviews, or employee assessments, gathering feedback should be a continuous effort, not just a one-time exercise.

The key to success lies in how you use the feedback: prioritizing key insights, developing actionable strategies, and fostering a culture that embraces continuous improvement. By doing so, your organization will remain agile, proactive, and better positioned to navigate challenges while capitalizing on opportunities. Ultimately, feedback is not something to be feared—it’s a powerful tool that, when used effectively, becomes the foundation for long-term success.