Why Feedback Is The Best Gift You’ll Get in Business

Welcome to Make Good Things Happen, a podcast for makers in business presented to
you by Angela D’Alton and Renee Baker.
Welcome to Make Good Things Happen. This is season two, episode three. My name is
Angela D’Alton. Joining me is Renee Baker as always,
set up this evening that I’m, that I’m looking at because we need new equipment.
Oh, anyone? Yeah. Wanted to sponsor us. We’re working on that. Yeah. I’ve got a
soundproofing beep on because I’m having to go handheld, so I know we’ve promised
that we were going to iron out all of our sound issues by now and, well, we broke
that promise. So hopefully this sounds okay. We are doing the best we can. There’s
the episode. We’ve got heaps of stuff to get through, and we’re going to be joining
you for the next half hour with a series of segments from our usual programming.
We have Shit Customer Service to start with, and this one’s a two -parter because
both Renee and I left the house this week and bought something,
which means Shit Customer Service has an opportunity to show itself again.
Renee, you shared a story with me. You did a recent road trip with your family and
you shared a story with me about a cafe you’ve gone to before and found acceptable
and had a different experience this time. Can you tell us a little bit about what
happened while you were away? Well, I don’t even know really why I want to share
this one other than just so you can share my incredulity with the whole situation.
But you actually made a comment just before when we were getting set up about the
ultimate end of the story being to ai Bots walk into a bar. So I’ll let that
foreshadow the story but basically yeah we were on a road trip we always stopped at
a particular location because it’s great to get out with the kid and the dog and
all that to stretch our legs and we weren’t super hungry because we’d been snacking
in the car but we thought we’d share between the three of us a smoothie and a
wrap and so I went to the cafe that I always go to and noticed that the smoothie
was $14 in price which I would say is certainly not on the cheap side but would
conjure up an image of at least a reasonably sized smoothie if not like a really
nice gourmet yummy one. And I thought, you know what? That’s all right. It’ll be a
nice big one. Great to share. And the sandwich, I think was $23. And this isn’t
like an airport. Sorry, one sandwich was $23. But a takeaway,
a single takeaway sandwich. And this is a regional town. I’m not saying that for
any reason other than just for context. And it was just an ordinary cafe by a
lake. It wasn’t like a tourist trap or anything like that. Well, it was at least
as far as I know. So I actually, when I got to the counter, I said, “Oh, is this
the large size smoothie?” and pointed to the cup. And I mean, the girl that served
me was gorgeous and lovely. She said, “Yep, that’s the size. All good.” I said,
“Sweet. I’ll have one of those and one of those.” Anyway, when the food came out
or when my name was called, the Moody came to me in really what looked like a kid
sized cup and you know, I actually picked it up from the counter and I had that
moment of like, oh, like it jarred me when I picked it up. But then you don’t
actually know what to say in that moment, like, what are you supposed to say? Like,
oh, is this it or are you sure this is it or I thought it was going to be
bigger. Anyway, I just, you know, I just panicked and left and accepted that that
was the smoothie and gave it to my daughter who just drank the whole thing really
and or as much as she could in one go. So there goes sharing that. The reason
that she couldn’t really drink most of it is because it actually wasn’t even
blended. It was just chunks of banana in there. No milk. She even asked me what
milk I wanted. But then we’re on the road. So what are you going to do? Turn
around? And like, yeah, I won’t even spend time on the sandwich, but let me tell
you it was Not good. Anyway, I was on a three hour road trip with time to kill
so I just used AI to draft an email just to complain basically, but I tried to
use my tactic which is I wanted to let you know some feedback before I take this
to Google review and I just wanted to see what your what your response is to this
feedback And I guess what that’s saying is I’m giving you an opportunity to help
turn this around and make it a positive story.
Anyway, as I said, they’ve responded with another AI email reply, no doubt,
that basically said nothing. It didn’t really say anything. Yeah, you forwarded it to
me and it basically acknowledged and apologized and just said, we hope it doesn’t
stop you coming back here. And I think those things are just missed opportunities
when people don’t.
you know that they’ve had a chat to the staff and they think they’ve worked out
what might have gone wrong. Just something, you know, just something. It was
literally just like, “Thanks. Thanks. Sorry. See you soon. Not much else.” And look,
you know, I’m being petty about the whole thing really, but it gets to a point now
when we spend money on things. It’s actually a really big deal. And I actually
said, “Look, next time we’re going to go to McDonald’s because at least I can
afford that, and know that I’m gonna get something. – Well, I don’t think you can
afford it, and this is the reason people go to McDonald’s in the first place
whenever they’re traveling is because they know there’s a certain standard. I mean,
it’s not all I want, but they know there is a certain standard of food in terms
of the cost ratio, whereas investing in a $3 sandwich and a $14 smoothie,
you’re kind of considering that, I would consider that a premium price and you are
expecting a premium experience and it sounds like it was far less than that and
maybe you aren’t their target market. Maybe it isn’t a tourist thing, maybe it isn’t
for passers -through and you just happen to, I don’t know, catch them at a bad
moment. There’s all sorts of things. I mean, I certainly did catch them. And you
know that. And I can, yeah, I totally understand all of that. But to not use the
opportunity, I think as a business owner is a really silly thing to do. Tell me
about your leaving house stories. I haven’t heard anything. Well,
I went to Melbourne with my mum and we met my sister in Melbourne for a midweek
gathering where we all went to the NGV to see the French Impressionism Exhibition.
We stayed overnight in a chain hotel and we went to a definite tourist trap
restaurant because it was on SouthBank. You know, it’s in that strip between the
hotel and the actual art gallery. And then in the evening, we went and saw the
performance of Illumé by Bangara Dance Theatre at the art center at the Playhouse
theatre in the Art Centre. So I was in that precinct for 24 hours and experienced
a variety of customer service in that timeframe. All of it was lacklustre at best.
It was a real shame. I was really let down. And like I said, I’m in the middle
of quite the tourist centre, epicentry feel like of Melbourne, considering it’s the
arts precinct and South Bank. And we were all just so disappointed everywhere we
turned with the customer service. In some cases, it was downright rude.
We had problems with buying our tickets to see the exhibition. There was a problem
with the computer. And, well, first of all, we got in the wrong queue. But the way
that we were told where we needed to get into the queue was not obvious, not
clear. And it was also not clear where we needed to go sign wise. So we almost
yelled at because we kept going to the wrong spot. So that was my first issue was
like, you can’t stand there, you have to stand over there. No, not there, there,
there. It was kind of that sort of thing. And that put me in a triggered state,
I guess, customer service wise. This was an usher, a queue usher, and she was
already being rude. It’s like, excuse me. And it was only because we were standing
in the members queue as opposed to the public queue. It wasn’t like we were doing
anything wrong. We were trying to break in. Lighting a cigarette. Yeah, exactly.
Anyway, we thankfully were second in the queue once we finally got to the correct
queue. But something happened to the computer system just as we got there, of
course, and No one could work it out and I am not joking.
I think we stood there for 15 maybe 20 minutes. I’m not exaggerating while People
just moved backwards and forwards between computers. They asked us to change cues
maybe three times And you didn’t just get let in We didn’t just get let in because
they couldn’t charge mum the money. She was paying for it. So in the meantime,
the public queue, as you can imagine, is progressing behind us. The issue with the
design of this particular box office was the wall was placed so that you couldn’t
see the person behind the computer. So you couldn’t see the staff, but you could
see us, mum, my sister and I all standing there looking at the box of sky so that
they’re off to our side if you like but they can’t they’re not behind us so
they’re looking at us and kind of starting to get angry of course because they’re
waiting and waiting and they think it’s our fault I think because they can’t see
what’s going on the Asha was not saying sorry it won’t be long sorry there’s a bit
of a problem. There was no application of the stress going on. No one was
explaining to us what the situation was. It just kept taking longer and longer and
then moving here, moving there, moving here, moving there. And I started to
disassociate because I could not handle the amount of incompetence that was going on.
In fact, in terms of just managing my expectations. It won’t be long or we’re
having a bit of a problem with the computer. Can you come back in 20 minutes?
There’s nothing. I was already uncomfortable. So that was step one. This is also an
exhibition, mind you, where it’s nearly $50 to get into. Like, it’s not, this is
not, this is, I would consider a premium exhibition experience. It’s the National
Gallery of Victoria. And the It was amazing, you know, seeing a Renoir in real
life, seeing a Monet in real life. As you know, as when we saw water lilies at
MoMA, seeing the Impressionists in real life is the only way to see them.
You can’t, you can’t experience or enjoy an Impressionist picture or a painting in
any other form, but looking at it directly because of the way that it works with
the light and distance. You know, it’s just all you have to be in place to enjoy
those pieces. And it was incredible. It was absolutely amazing. There’s a van going
there with a security guard standing right next to it. You know, it was special. It
was absolutely worth the weight. Anyway, the other problems we had were also with
the hotel, the hotel staff and just this general disinterest in, I don’t know,
helping you. Everything’s a self -serve chaos to check in and check out. It was just
a generally inhospitable experience at the hotel. Of course, it was another
experience. My sister’s a vegan and she’s aware that that comes with certain
management, particularly when you’re eating at restaurants and so on. I had researched
this particular place. It had a menu, vegan options available, and they were all
over the menu. It had a good variety of things and we thought, “Cool, we’ll go
there,” because I’m gluten -free, I’m dairy -free, Lara’s vegan. So we thought it
would be good. Lara ordered a vegan pizza, and when it came out, it was literally,
I’m not exaggerating, it was literally the dough, tomato sauce, like the pizza sauce,
and maybe six cherry tomatoes cut in half,
and that was it. Lara was like, but there’s not even cheese or there’s not even
onion or anything like and by cheese she means vegan cheese she wasn’t going to say
anything because you know and then she went no and I said good she asked the
server the waiter you know is this is it like there’s no cheese no nothing and and
then they went and got someone else and then they went and got the guy the the
kind of front of house guy the one who showed us to our tables. And he was
defensive, which shocks me still. And Lara said, I would expect there to be cheese
on this. And he said, Well, we’ve listed out the ingredients on the on the menu,
which says their tomato. And she said, you would expect cheese to be on a pizza,
at least I would. It doesn’t say dough there either. Good come back.
And she stood her ground really well and she, but she wasn’t rude. She just sort
of said, could you put some mushrooms on it? Is there, you know? – Throw me a
bone. – And then he said, he said, all right, yes, I’ll take that away and we’ll
sort something out. And then it came back and he said, I’m gonna have to charge
you extra for the vegetables. It’ll be another $5 for the extra toppings. And mum
said, “Just do it. Mum said, “Just do it.” That’s fine. And Lara’s like, “Okay,
thank you.” And so, you know, 15 minutes later she gets another pizza and it’s got
a decent amount of other ingredients and she’s eating it. It’s, I mean, it’s raising
a few things for me. But I think one thing that’s interesting is that idea of
giving feedback. And you know, you said that Lara was unsure about doing it. And
for a whole host of reasons, I Imagine one of them being she probably didn’t want
her food being contaminated, but also just you know, it doesn’t feel nice necessarily
to give feedback. But one thing that I guess even before I sent this AI email to
this cafe that I thought is feedback is actually valuable information. People pay
money to hear my feedback about things and I’m not saying that to sound arrogant,
but it’s actually worth my time to give this feedback to you. Yeah,
we hesitate to do it because of fear of the reaction, but the reaction should
actually be with open arms. Thank you so much because this is your customer. This
is who’s actually the one that is utilizing the service that you’re offering. And so
I actually, it’s making me think of our weekend away, which also had a whole host
of things. I mean, we were the same. We were all just kind of nitpicking at it
constantly. We still had a great time. But I’ve got this list of things that I
wanted to email the holiday rental company with my feedback But it’s like well,
that’s you know 15 plus minutes of my time to consolidate those thoughts and put
them on paper and you know what I could do that Or I could just not book it
again And I guess this is where to bring this back or to tie this back to make
good things happen the podcast and why we’re sitting here Telling you about these
stories is thinking about the context of your customer and how they are living their
lives. So many of us are experiencing these frictions, these micro -frictions every
single day when we leave the house, we’re having to speak to people at the
supermarket, at the shops, at the bank, or if we’re privileged enough to be in a
hotel or at an art gallery, these are all opportunities for us to be essentially
worn down. And when you are providing a service or a product to those people,
how can you actually make that experience a joyous, wonderful one? Because all of
these layers actually add up and they are the reason that people come back to you.
They’re the reason that people tell their friends about you. So it might feel like
something that, “Oh, I can’t be bothered. If someone wants to buy something from me,
they’ll buy it. I can’t be bothered having customer service.” It is so important. It
is why Angela and I always always always talk about it because it is the one thing
that we see as a huge opportunity for makers to take advantage of because look at
what you’re up against look at what you’re comparing yourself to and yes all of
this is still it’s not your competition per se but it’s well it’s other ways to
spend your money yes exactly it’s it’s competing with the time of what those people
are doing with their lives they’re choosing to go to an art gallery or they’re
choosing to go to a makers and shakers market and shop and so how can you make
that experience one that is memorable in a good way? Absolutely. Because I guess why
we’re telling you these stories that may be as inspirational. It is. I think you’ve
hit the nail on the head. Feedback is an opportunity. No one is suggesting that you
should cop any abuse or rudeness from people. That’s a totally different story. If
people however are advocating for themselves and offering you some constructive
feedback in a way that will absolutely help you remain curious,
remain ego -free as much as you can. They don’t have to tell you this.
They can walk away and just never spend their money with you again and you’d be
none the wiser and have no opportunity to improve. Use the opportunity not only to
improve but to turn that disappointed customer into one that potentially becomes an
advocate for you because of the way you handled this situation. If you are the type
of person, and I say this as someone who may identify with this, but if you’re the
type of person that experiences rejection sensitivity and feedback sends you into a
bit of a spin when you get it, I hear that, I get that. Take a moment, put the
email aside, just walk away from the situation or whatever it might be and just
breathe and then come back to it later because it is okay to have that first
initial visceral response of despair. – Anger, whatever it is, whatever it is. But just know that once that emotion has passed, you can then come back and
revisit it with a more analytical mind or a more strategic mind or business mind,
however you want to call it. Because as Angela said, it is still worth it. I think
that’s really good advice.
The next segment we’re featuring in this episode is Events Breakdown. This is just a
quick recap on the crafting conversation panel series that we’ve introduced recently,
where I am hosting a panel discussion event in Ballarat with three local legends.
The last one that we had in mid -September at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute was
the Jewelers Edition, which featured Alana Smith of Cut Off Your Hands Jewellery,
Lucie HB, or Lucie Hassell-Barrett, who’s a fine jeweller, and Jessica Larm, who is a
Finnish -Australian jeweller. We had such a good time. It was a good crowd.
We had some piano playing from Ellen Sorensen, who’s also a crafter, but also highly
accomplished musician and piano teacher. So she was playing the old baby grand in
the Humffray Room. We had some snacks that my dad and stepmom had lovingly prepared
for me as ex -caterers. Yeah, big shout out. Yeah, we had a lovely time. It was
good fun. The community showed up. The community connected. We chatted about things
and we had a good laugh and we had a Q &A and it was awesome. I was also helped
out by the lovely Rowena who I met through Craft Lab events. She was on our door
duty and just keeping an eye on things for me while the event happened and it was
a really good time. We had a good laugh. I personally want to thank the community
for coming out and showing their support for me personally but also to the community
in general, showing the community that you care about them once again, which is what
Ballarat does, and supporting your fellow makers. And we’ve got another one coming up
in November, again at the Ballarat Mechanics Institute, it’ll be Wednesday, the 12th
of November. This time it’s going to be the artists edition. And I have invited
three Ballarat legends to come along and chat about kind of the commercial art side
of things, so thinking murals and book illustrations and brands and posters and
things like that. And we will announce the panellists for that very exciting event
on our social media in the coming weeks. So stay tuned, we’re going to be featuring
them on the blog just like we did with the first event. And if you want to have
a look at any photos from the event, we shared them.
because I was not there, but so thanks for the recap for my benefit as well.

Making news, there’s heaps of news happening in the community. At the moment,
there’s a lot of markets that are currently accepting applications. I think Bowerbird I
saw was open for the end of the year market and a few others. So have a look
around or check out the events calendar on the Make Good Things Happen website. If
you are interested in seeing what stallholder applications are open at the moment,
one thing that we both saw was funny. We both sent to each other without realiwing
was the announcement from Christina of Made 590 that they have a new range called
Scissors Paper Made, which is kind of like a scrapbooking, stickers and crafting
range of bits and pieces. And it looks awesome. We’ll be sharing the Instagram posts
to these things, of course, on the show night so that you can have a look at them
as well. Made 590 being a stalwart of the community. Christina being in business for
I think almost 20 years now with Australian made fashion and make a goodies in her
store. She’s created a bit of a cult I would dare say. – Yeah, and the store
is in Marrickville, but they also have online where you can shop. Yes, as someone
who has been reintroduced to the world of stickers via a two -year -old child,
I am very excited. The other thing that we saw pop up on social media this week
was CJ Hendry has done an Instagram reel sharing her product photography.
Now, if you’re not familiar with CJ Hendry. They are an illustrator, artist,
product maker, experienced designer who was originally from Queensland,
is now based in New York. And I can’t even really sum it up in terms of how big
they are. But I know that they have collectors all over the world of their work. I
think an original painting sells upwards from 20, 30, 50 grand. The original drawing,
I should say, they definitely don’t paint everything she does is drawing. But one
thing I thought was really interesting was that CJ shared about how they managed the
product photography for their editions on the website. And so they have the original
works, but they also sell prints and manufactured editions of things. It’s best you
just go look at it if you’re not familiar, it’s pretty awesome. As to educators who
are constantly speaking about the importance of product photography. It was really
interesting to learn that, yeah, this is something that even one of the most up
there artists in terms of success is still doing them themselves.
And the reason why is because they want to have that control over the final image.
And it’s also relatively easy to pull off. If you have the right equipment,
they use a proper digital SLR camera, they have studio lighting, they have the
vanishing backdrop, I think it’s called. That’s all. And then I imagine just some
editing post. And so if this is something that’s been on your list, product
photography, that you’re not quite sure how to manage, start by checking out this
reel. It’s a great place to start, but also dive in to make good things happen
because we also have some photography resources for members on our member library as
well. It’s just absolutely worth upskilling in this area if you can. – For those of
you who are interested in doing workshops, there is a few opportunities available.
Sydney Craft Week, managed by the Australian Design Centre, has just announced their
program. There’s a series of workshops and exhibitions there. So head to the
Australian Design Centre website to find out more. The famous weaver,
Melbourne based, Maryanne Moodie, is also doing workshops again. So this is big news
for people who are interested in creating their own special unique weavings for the
wall in particular is Marianne’s speciality. We’ll make sure the link is available
for you in the show notes. – So that’s this week’s Making News. And if you like
this segment, let us know because we are keen to bring you more real -time news,
especially with the faster turnover of our editing, which I think we’ve mentioned as
well. Not easy when we’re doing everything all by ourselves, as you know, we’ve got
sound difficulties, editing challenges. But if you enjoy the news side of things,
let us know because that will help motivate us to continue the faster turnaround.
And also shout out to everyone that’s already passed on some feedback from our
previous two episodes. We’re hearing more comments, which is fantastic as we did ask
that we’d love to hear more from you this season. So thank you for those real time
comments letting us know when you’ve listened or what you took away from the
episode. And you can do that any way you like really. We’ve got our Instagram pages
that Angela mentioned. If you’re a member, we have a Facebook group just for
members, which is a great place to leave comments as well. Or of course you can
send us an email directly. All of that should be available in the show notes as
well. So just again, thank you for motivating us to keep going.
To wrap up this episode, we have this week, I and this week,
I, this week, Angela has been very busy. So I’ll let Angela tell us all about her
bits and pieces because I’m still reading the same book I recommended last week.
I had a very busy week Last weekend, I went to some exhibition openings to local
exhibitions. One was Tim Gresham. Tim Gresham was in Craft Lab 2024,
which is how I met him. He’s a master weaver. He teaches at the Australian Tapestry
Workshop. He also is an avid photographer and he had an exhibition at the Old
Butchers Shop Gallery in Soldiers Hill, which was of his photos that he takes when
he goes out for his very early morning walks at Lake Wendouree in Ballarat. And it
was very interesting, beautiful landscape, so many different colours. And yeah, it’s
called Atmos very suitably. It’s a lovely sort of peaceful, serene imagery. Then I
went to Ross Creek Gallery, Ruby Pilven’s gallery out in Ross Creek,
funnily enough. Bren Luke, a local artist, had an exhibition called Things Near
Places Dear. Bren is not only a pencil and drawing artist, but also a painter and
a photographer, and this exhibition featured all of the variety of media that he
dabbles in. Extraordinary details in the in the pencil work and the pen work,
very nostalgic captures, some very meaningful captures, things from his family,
items and things like that. There was one drawing and painting of a photo booth
from a photo that he took in RMIT, you know, one of those automatic photo booths,
which I just absolutely fell in love with. It was a really awesome exhibition and I
think that’s open until the end of September. So if you are in the area, head
around and have a look at Ross Creek Gallery. Then, as I said, I went to
Melbourne, I went to National Gallery of Victoria, NGV, and I saw the French
Impressionism exhibit, which I’ve kind of talked about already, so I won’t go into
much more detail about that. But that evening, yeah, we saw Illume, the current
touring program, which I think just ended a few days after we’d seen it, their
their national tour of Bangarra Dance Theatre, which was unbelievable. It is an
overwhelmingly captivating full body sensory experience and moving and emotional and
just very evocative Indigenous dance troupe performing a series of stories about
colonialism and it was really moving and impressive and it’s a 70 minute show,
no interval. And I don’t think I’ve had 70 minutes go so fast.
The sets, the lighting, the costumes, the choreography. Mum said at one point she
wanted to just check that Lara and I were okay. We both just staring with our
mouths open. You just hooked from the moment that it starts. And then on the
weekend, I went to the Rare Trade Centre to the Makers film festival very much
centred around makers all around the world, curated by Maker and Smith,
a company based in Western Australia, featuring a variety of films from Australia and
all around the world, centered around making and makers. So there was someone who
made Incense, there was a story about Terazzo Tiles and a story about an Tomato
Maker, which was produced by Kate and Jack from We Are Makers, who I had privilege
of meeting last year because they came out to Ballarat for Craft Lab. It was such
a great little film festival in the Rare Trade Centre, so it was in a lovely
environment. I saw a lot of people there that I knew, of course. If you want to
know more about the Makers Film Festival, head to the Maker and Smith website, and
I will also provide the link to that in the show notes, but – Yeah, he couldn’t be
more on brand, really. – Exactly, all of the things I’ve done were very cultural and
I must say, it was kind of uplifting, just concentrating all of these lovely little
events into such a small space. – I can’t even, I can’t be exhausted but excited at
the same time. Wonderful, well thank you so much for listening to this episode of
Make Good Things Happen the podcast. We hope you enjoyed it and we will see you
next time. – See you soon, folks, bye. – Bye. – Thanks for listening to Make Good
Things Happen. If you enjoyed this episode, why not write a review or share it with
a friend? For show notes and more, head to mgth .com .au. This has been a D’Alton Baker production.

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