(Ambrosio’s note:  This is an interesting, limited time, free offer for current franchisees looking to receive real-time feedback from their customers.  Utilizing QR codes technology, Feedback Revolution QR can offer your customers a quick, easy, and fun way to provide feedback through their smartphones (or online) and can help franchisees learn how to improve the customer experience.  Check it out.)

To do its part to help struggling small businesses nationwide grow and create new jobs, South Office LLC has announced it is offering its new QR-code driven customer feedback service for free.  South Office is targeting companies with one to five locations, including franchises, and will offer its Feedback Revolution QR service at no charge to the first 1,000 businesses that sign up.  “Our offer is simple,” says Martin R. Baird, chief feedback officer for South Office, a Boise, Idaho-based company. “If a business would like to use our cutting-edge research and common technology to learn about their customers’ experience, we will do it for free. They just need to sign up at www.feedbackrevolutionqr.com to get started.”

Feedback Revolution QR weds the technology of QR codes and smartphones with extensive customer satisfaction research published by Harvard. The research, which spanned 10 years and involved more than 4,000 customers in 14 industries, concluded that a customer’s willingness to refer is more powerful than satisfaction or loyalty. One of the service’s questions was developed from the research, which also concluded that customers who are willing to risk their reputation for a company will continue to patronize that business and tell their friends to do the same, creating repeat and new business.

Because the service is quick and easy, people are more likely to participate and provide valuable customer feedback. The customer sees the code and scans it with their smartphone. A list of at most five questions appears on the phone’s screen. The customer types or uses speech to text on the phone and then transmits their feedback by touching a “submit” button. It typically takes less than 60 seconds to provide feedback. Customers who do not have a smartphone can participate on their computer or any other device that has an Internet connection, using the URL for the customer survey.

Once customers have scanned the code, they can answer the questions anywhere — while they’re in the store or restaurant, walking around the mall, walking to their car. And because their responses are anonymous, they can be honest about their customer service experience. Anonymity also eliminates the guilt some customers feel in providing honest feedback.

Actionable customer feedback leads to an improved customer experience that goes directly to the bottom line, Baird says. According to American Express, 70 percent of Americans are willing to spend an average of 13 percent more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service. American Express also found that when a customer is happy, he tells nine people about his experience, but he will tell 16 people about a poor experience.

“The Internet has made it easy to share experiences with the world, but we want customers to share that valuable information with the business owners directly so the owners know exactly what customers want changed and improved,” Baird says. “Businesses should understand that comment cards don’t work because customer feedback needs to be fast and actionable.”