We've talked about the importance of soliciting customer feedback on a number of occasions at the Internet Marketing Monitor.  As we've said before, finding out what your customers think about your product, service, and website is a great way to improve just about anything you do.

But today I wanted to briefly talk about another type of feedback.  While your customers keep the lights on with the money they spend on your company, your employees are the ones who create those products, services, and websites that customers spend money on.

I started working on a new project today.  It was new to me but has technically been in existence for several months now.  One of the first priorities I wanted to tackle was the actual interface that the employees use for this project.  But since I'm completely new to it, I had no idea where to start.

I decided to send out a quick email to the folks who've been using it to find out what they think and get some of their feedback.  My email was quick, to the point, and asked a few specific questions.

The response was almost immediate.  When I got with the programmer who works on the project, we were both surprised by some of the things that were said.  Issues were raised that neither of us would ever have known about because we don't use that interface on a day to day basis.

I can honestly say that I think we're going to have a much better product on our hands based on the feedback we got from other employees.  When it comes to the internal systems and tools that you use with your business, the employees are, in a sense, your customers.

Happy customers spend more money.  Happy employees help your company make more money.  And employees who 1) know their input is valued and 2) help shape a project into an efficient, working machine are more productive.

So that's what I learned today:  talk to the people who use a product… because what looks good on paper doesn't always work well in the real world.