This Wednesday I truly discovered the power of a testimonial for the first time, when I was talking to a gentleman about helping young people get into employment. He even gave me advice on my own career, which I assured him was on the right path. After spending just under an hour with this guy, who was clearly extremely passionate about his job and was serious about helping others, I was so pleased and took back by his ability to actually listen to me, and assess what I was saying on a personal one to one basis, and then give me good honest feedback based on what I’d said, that I asked for the details of his boss. It was at this point his face dropped, his initial thought being that I was going to report him, instead I just wanted to contact his boss to let him know what a credit he was to his company. After filling in a short compliment slip with a few kind words written down on it, and then reading it back to him, he got chocked up and a tear ran down his face. Not knowing what to say faced by a middle aged crying man, I jokingly said hopefully that will get you a nice bonus at Christmas, to which he replied “What you’ve just written down about me there is my bonus, you’re the first person to go out of your way to do that for me in my whole career and I’m so touched and moved by it, thank you”. WOW! What a comment, I was really took back by it to be honest, but there’s two things I took from it, and I’ve thought a lot about it since. The first being the self gratitude I received in return just for letting someone know they were doing a great job, and believe me it put me in such a good mood knowing I’d made a difference to him. The second being that I was the first person in his career to give him feedback without being prompted. Now some of you might think that that’s down to the fact that he might not always be as thoughtful and personal, but believe me this guy was so down to earth and passionate about what he was doing, there was no way that I was just a one off or an exception. This just proves that not enough of us give feedback, when a simple comment or kind word can have such a massive impact on someone, especially an employee or a business owner. Most of us are quick to criticise when something goes wrong, for example “there’s a hair in my food” or “you’re late”, but do enough of us give good feedback when we receive good service? I’m led to believe that the answer is no. If you’re reading this, you’ll be on thebestof Burton website, and if you take a look around you’ll notice that there’s many businesses featured, some of which you may know. All I ask is that if you know any businesses featured on this site, or in fact any other business, then please leave them a short (or long) testimonial letting them know what they’ve done right, or even some constructive criticism to let them know what they could do better.
It’s the simple things in life that make us the happiest, and after this experience I will definitely be leaving much more good feedback when it’s necessary. Give it a go the next time you receive good service!