In a healthy agency culture, feedback is always flowing and driving continuous improvement. It’s vital to build a system that drives new feedback.

Rather than one-off attempts to gather feedback, set up recurring and repeatable processes.

Here are some feedback collection mechanisms that we’ve used across our Barrel Holdings agencies:

• Client Satisfaction Survey: after a project or periodically (e.g. monthly, quarterly), send a short survey asking for scores on communication, work quality, project management, value they feel they’re getting, and whatever else. Leave an open-ended space for any additional comments.
• Employee Engagement Survey: each quarter, send around a short questionnaire (Gallup’s Q12 has some good questions) to get a sense of how the team is feeling about the work, their colleagues, the culture, and whether they are being supported
• Win/Loss Interview: whether you win or lose a prospect, follow up with a call to understand how they came to the decision, what counted for/against your firm, and how you stacked up against competitors.
• Employee Exit Interview: when an employee hands in their resignation notice, find time to have a convo and dig into what led to their decision, their thoughts on the culture, work, processes, etc. and what they thought could’ve been better.
• Anonymous Feedback: on some teams, feedback is more forthcoming if it’s submitted anonymously. This also opens the door for more extreme types of feedback, but it’s an opportunity to gather information that might only become available on Glassdoor later.
• One-on-one check-ins: these can be between manager and direct reports, HR and employees, skip level meetings where leadership meets with employees a few levels below, etc. These are periodic conversations to gain perspective on how a team member is experiencing the work and the culture. It’s also an opportunity to surface any roadblocks or issues that are getting in the way.

These are some core feedback collection practices. Other activities like after action reviews / project debriefs can also yield feedback. We’ve also seen short surveys after employee onboardings or after an all-hands team meeting be useful.

And an important note about feedback: it’s like any other source of information – some of it may be useful and others not so much. Separate the emotions surrounding it as much as possible and reflect on what makes sense to take away from the feedback. In some cases, you’ll want to adapt and evolve but in others you may want to stick to your guns and hold firm on your principles.