Let's say you do a survey. Customers or prospects. You're gathering satisfaction levels, testing a new product concept, messaging angles, whatever.

You get results. They're helpful - giving you product or messaging direction, indicating which customers really like you, which are really pissed, etc.

The vast majority of companies do nothing with that data. Some may make the product or messaging changes (a surprising number do not), but most miss the huge opportunity to respond (directly or indirectly) back to those same responders.

Let's say your customers send a clear message about something they want different. How do you let them know you've heard them? How do you respond, react and change?

A segment of your customers say they love you. How do you react? How do you leverage that love? How do you reciprocate that love to strengthen the bond between customer and your company, and encourage more of those evangelists to tell fellow customers and prospects about how great you are?

Most marketers focus their time thinking about the survey before the survey goes out. What are the right questions? In what order? How many? Are we sending it to the right people? What should the email say?

Few think about what to do after the survey. And that opportunity is far more important.