Why is employee feedback hard to hear?

Anonymous employee feedback can be difficult to hear is because it often highlights blind spots. As a manager, you might be deeply invested in your leadership style or the decisions you’ve made, and hearing that some employees are dissatisfied can feel like an attack on your capabilities. Since the feedback isn’t tied to a specific individual, it can be challenging to understand the context or get more information. You might even feel that it’s not entirely fair, especially if it touches on something that you feel is out of your control or doesn’t align with your perception of the situation. However, this is where you must remind yourself that anonymous feedback can give employees the courage to voice concerns that they might otherwise keep to themselves. It’s an important signal that there are areas for improvement — areas that you might not have seen on your own.

Next, anonymous feedback can be vague, which leaves room for misinterpretation. You might receive comments like “The communication here is bad” or “Management doesn’t listen,” which can feel frustrating because you don’t know exactly what the underlying issues are. Without knowing who’s providing the feedback or the specific scenarios they’re referencing, you can struggle to pinpoint what needs to change. It’s tempting to dismiss such feedback as unhelpful, but the key is to look at patterns over time. If you notice similar comments emerging from multiple anonymous sources, it’s a clear indication that something is off, and ignoring it could perpetuate problems within the team. Even if the feedback is not entirely specific, it’s still worth investigating further.

So, why should you listen to anonymous feedback, even when it feels hard to accept?

First, because it provides an unfiltered view of the organization. Employees often feel more comfortable sharing their true thoughts when they know they won’t face direct repercussions. This honesty can offer invaluable insights into the state of your workplace culture, employee satisfaction, and areas where improvements are needed. Second, addressing anonymous feedback shows that you value transparency and are committed to improvement. When employees see that you take their concerns seriously, even when they are difficult to hear, it can foster trust and a sense of accountability. Finally, tackling anonymous feedback head-on can help build a more open, supportive environment in which employees feel empowered to share their thoughts — both positive and negative — in a constructive manner.

The most important step after receiving anonymous feedback is to take action. Rather than getting bogged down in defensiveness, take time to assess the feedback with an open mind. If needed, follow up anonymous with team members to gain clarity on the concerns being raised. Involve your leadership team to brainstorm solutions or make necessary adjustments. And importantly, communicate to your employees that you’ve heard them and are working to make positive changes. Acknowledging that feedback is a gift — even when it’s difficult — sets the stage for a healthier, more communicative workplace culture, where feedback is not feared, but embraced as a powerful tool for growth.

Let’s talk about Incogneato!

Incogneato is an ideal tool for anonymous employee feedback because it offers a unique blend of privacy, ease of use, and actionable insights, all while maintaining a strong focus on building trust within organizations. In today’s workplace, employees often hesitate to share honest feedback due to concerns about retaliation, judgment, or not being taken seriously. Incogneato addresses these challenges by ensuring complete anonymity, which encourages employees to speak freely about their experiences, concerns, and suggestions without fear of repercussions.

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Why might you want to embrace a distributed workforce? Matt Mullenweg of Automatic (WordPress) lays out out a few reasons in this short video:

So yes, distributed work is here to stay whether or not your company embraces it or struggles with it. At Incogneato we have decades of experience working on remote teams and during that time, we’ve collected some tips and tricks to share with you. There are many ways to embrace a remote workforce but we think these five will be the most impactful. 

1. Foster a culture of trust.

Many companies are going to an unlimited (or more accurately non-tracked) vacation policy. Rather than limiting how much time employees can take off, they trust employees to take however much time they want while considering their tasks and responsibilities. This sort of policy eliminates the need for time-consuming tracking and accrual practices and sets the stage for a relationship built upon trust. 

Likewise, remote work policies should be trust-based. Trust-building starts in the recruiting and hiring stage and continues indefinitely. Interviewers and hiring managers should stress what will be expected of new hires and candidates should be selected based upon self-direction and maturity. 

Managers should be hesitant to micromanage employees, and trust that they will accomplish what was jointly agreed to. Communication should be honest and transparent and you should make time to get to know each other.

4. Make Time Together

Making time to be together: If possible you should establish “together hours” where 50+% of the team is expected to be online and working together. According to Harvard Business Review “teams had on average 7+ hours in the workday during which more than half the team was consistently online. Those hours are also when you should schedule business processes that benefit from having greater team overlap—as well as making and communicating decisions that affect the entire group.”

But regular check-ins between managers and direct reports, standing meetings with cross-functional project teams, and time for social interactions with subjects that fall outside of work topics and duties should be prioritized. 

Even if your workforce is mostly remote, it can be extremely valuable to also occasionally come together physically. Planning one or two annual meetings where everyone travels to a single location to accomplish business and social objectives will be important for effective distributed teams. 

3. Provide the tools your remote team needs. 

Don’t skimp here. The productivity of your remote employees (and thus your company) depends upon having the right tools in place. These tools consist of both software and hardware and can often be facilitated by listing preferred solutions and required applications and by providing a stipend for your  remote workforce to use to get set up with them.

Hardware

Let’s start on the hardware side. A home office setup should consist of a decent camera, a good microphone/speaker combo, and (crucially) a strong internet connection. Of course, you can go crazy with this sort of thing as Mullengweg might suggest but you need not spend that much on a setup (though the results are amazing). Here’s a baseline list of specs (and a few recommendations) for which you should look:

Desk (chair optional) – Let’s start with the basics. You should strive for good ergonomics and health wherever you set up your office. Desks that you stand at are increasingly popular due to the health benefits of avoiding long periods of sitting. The popularity of standings desks is evident in the number of companies now offering them. You can find quality choices from Uplift, Fully, and Autonomous. If you like your current desk but want to stand from time to time you can also purchase a standing desk converter. Don’t forget a pair of nice comfy pair of “house shoes” and a cushioned mat!

If you must sit (but you are willing to try a standing desk), you can opt for a tall stool, a hydraulic chair,  whatever this is, or even a skateboard like thingy. For those who know they are going to sit for long stretches, splurging on a nice chair is a must and should be at least subsidized by employers. 

Monitor – Your existing monitor is likely fine, however if you are spending more time at home, upgrading what you are looking at for hours each day can be a welcome improvement. Start by determining the size monitor you want/need. Focus in on LED monitors as those generally represent the best blend of price and features today. For work, you’ll want to look at 4k monitors which tend to come with refresh rates of 60 Hz. Then look for IPS displays with either FreeSync or G-Sync. Lastly, you can determine if you want features like a USB hub built in (which helps manage all those cables) and what types of adjustments you need for height—or if you want to mount it on a a onitor arm, look for one with VESA compatibility. This ProArt Display from ASUS would be a good choice or form something a bit larger check out this 32” Dell monitor for a bit more space.

Camera – These can be pretty simple (and inexpensive). You don’t need 4k. 1080p will do just fine. In fact, many monitors and laptops already have a camera built in. Your employees may want to utilize a camera (or accessory) that can be closed physically to ensure it isn’t on when they don’t expect it to be. In most cases, this is your camera.

Microphone/Speaker – If you don’t want to spend a lot on a standalone microphone, you can avoid the dreaded echo effect by making sure your microphone and speaker are handled by a single device. You can use the mic and speakers that are equipped on your laptop, but for an upgraded experience you could try something like this or this. 

Software

As for software, this will relate closely to the software your team already uses and is familiar with and will tend to fall into one of the following categories: Chat, File Sharing, Project Management, Video Conferencing. Sometimes, many of these can be accommodated by one solution. For example, Google Workspace (formerly gSuite) or Microsoft 365 both provide file sharing, email, calendaring, docs and spreadsheets, chat, and video conferencing solutions. 

Some of the individual tools that are garnering the most attention (and usage) in these categories are:

Chat: Slack 

File Sharing: Dropbox

Project Management: Monday

Video Conferencing: No surprise here, Zoom

4. Explicitly define communication habits and expectations

With all these tools however comes greater opportunity to disrupt the normal flow of your workday. Now everyone will have many ways to reach out to someone. Email, Chat, Video Conferencing, and maybe even phone calls we guess.

Each is used for a different purpose, and you should orient your staff on what patterns and practices are desired in your organization. Here’s a framework you might decide to use from the authors of Remote, the Basecamp team with some minor edits, mostly for emphasis:

Chat: Quick questions and messages. We use Slack and chat throughout the day. Slack allows for setup of group channels around a particular topic. We find the old axiom, “If you have a question, someone else probably has the same question,” to be true, so for general clarification, we always have people default to the group channel so everyone benefits from the answer. 

Email: Non-urgent communication and project delivery. Email is appropriate for longer-term communication around a particular topic. We tell our team to err on the side of brevity with email. Since so many people use their phone for email, we want to send them quick messages that they will easily be able to digest and respond to on the go. 

Phone: We make phone calls from inside Slack and use a VoIP phone system. Phone calls are used for clarification when chat won’t do, and brainstorming or troubleshooting a particular project or issue. 

Regular (Video) Meetings: Each of our teams has a weekly meeting and each individual has a weekly one-on-one with their manager. Having these standing meetings helps us cut down on the clutter and one-off questions, since the team knows they will get a chance to address any issues during their weekly chat. It also gives everyone regular human interaction, and a chance to come up for air, joke around, present ideas and celebrate wins together.

Matt Mullenweg of Automatic also suggests that as much communication as possible be online—where it is documented so that everyone can understand the why of decisions that were made. The conversations and messages that led to a decision are all there for future review. 

5. Don’t forget to seek feedback on how it is all working

Last year we wrote about the importance of collecting feedback from remote workers. That still holds true, maybe even more so today. And although we admit to bias, we still think that collecting anonymous feedback offers advantages to other methods. You can set up a free demo of an Incogeato suggestion box in under 10 seconds.

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An anonymous employee feedback program can be an indispensable tool for any organization. Even the most vocal employees may withhold feedback out of fear of irritating others or creating internal controversy. Anonymity breaks that barrier and can lead to many positive outcomes, including:

• Greater Accountability
  With a safe place to share their concerns, employees and managers alike become more accountable. Both will be more likely to follow through with promises when others can safely report their shortcomings.
• Improved Employee Retention
  With the average cost-per-hire at nearly $4,700 according to SHRM, retaining employees should be a top priority to every organization. While employees leave for a variety of reasons, some can be retained by listening to grievances and taking quick action.
• Better Legal Compliance
  Whistleblowing is a difficult thing to ask of any employee given the great personal and professional risk involved. Tools that guarantee anonymity help employees feel more comfortable sharing information.
• More Employee Engagement
  Nothing makes an employee feel more appreciated than knowing their feedback led to a positive change. While those who want credit will speak freely, there are likely many more who prefer to remain anonymous and just know that management cares.

How to Collect Anonymous Employee Feedback

Fortunately, Incogneato makes it easy to collect anonymous employee feedback. In fact, you can create your first fully-functional box in 15 seconds from the Incogneato homepage. You are immediately given a unique web address to share with employees and a sent a login to view their responses. To get even more out of your box, we recommend reading Best Practices for Creating an Employee Suggestion Box.

Why Choose Incogneato for Your Anonymous Employee Feedback Program?

As you can see from this comparison page, Incogneato gives you significant value for the money. Many of our included features can only be found on enterprise-level solutions, which cost significantly more.

Also, all Incogneato plans come with a unique anonymous message relay and chat feature that lets you hold anonymous conversations with your respondents.

If you haven’t already, you can give Incogneato a try for free by setting up your first anonymous suggestion box. No credit card is required during the trial.

The post Collecting Anonymous Employee Feedback appeared first on Incogneato Anonymous Suggestion Box.

The world is now several months into the COVID-19 pandemic and many local, state, and national governments are requiring companies to shut their doors and allow employees to work from home. Remote work can be a challenge for some, but it does offer one key benefit: a quiet time away from colleagues to reflect upon work life.

We are biologically attuned to the emotions of those around us. Removing our coworkers from the situation opens up our ability to convey our thoughts honestly without considering how others will immediately react. In other words, employees working from home are in a safe place now, removed from ordinary work-life and it is much easier to take a step back and approach their feedback holistically.

Make the most of “extra time”

Many remote employees have more time on their hands. With the average American commute consuming almost an hour each day and a likely dip in workload, some employees have several idle hours each day to reflect upon their work or craft new ideas. Forward-thinking organizations should encourage them to submit new ideas or spend some time developing out previous ideas they had been forced to back-burner.

Retain your best workers

Inevitably, some employees will use their downtime to begin searching for a new job. This underscores the need for anonymous feedback as a retention strategy. Research shows that employees are more candid when their personal anonymity is guaranteed. Giving employees a safe, anonymous tool to address their grievances can ultimately keep them around.

Collecting anonymous feedback is easy

Incogneato is a safe, anonymous employee feedback tool that is also significantly less expensive than other options. We believe that all organizations should be able to collect anonymous feedback without having to pay hefty monthly fees. This especially rings true now as organizations are trying to cut costs to survive. Incogneato is free for the first 30 days and no credit card is required until you subscribe to a plan.

The months ahead will be trying times for many organizations. We hope your business weathers the storm and comes out stronger and that your employees stay safe during this challenging period.

For additional reading, we recommend the following:

• A comprehensive guide to remote work
• The benefits of anonymous feedback
• Best practices for creating an employee suggestion box
• The research behind anonymous employee feedback

The post Now Is a Great Time to Collect Anonymous Feedback from Employees Working from Home appeared first on Incogneato Anonymous Suggestion Box.

Creating a simple employee suggestion box can have a massive impact on employee morale, workplace culture, and the overall success of your organization. There are many other benefits of an employee suggestion box, which we have already covered in another article. This article will focus on some best practices for getting your employee suggestion box up and running.

If you’re familiar with Incogneato, then you know we make it very easy to create a suggestion box. All you need is a box title and an email address to create a live, fully-functional employee suggestion box. If you’re collecting feedback from a specific group for a single purpose, you can immediately share your box address and start collecting feedback. However, if your aim is to launch a sophisticated, long-lasting feedback program, we recommend the following steps:

1. Determine what type of feedback you need to collect. Are you looking for leadership feedback? Feedback for a specific team? Or perhaps you are collecting reports of misconduct. Sometimes you can collect all employee feedback in one box, but most of the time – especially with larger organizations – it makes more sense to create a different box for each purpose. With Incogneato, you can designate box managers to view and respond to feedback left only in the box(es) they are assigned to. You can also create a customized web address for each box so employees can be sure they’re at the right place. For more thorough feedback, you can add up to 25 open-ended questions to each box.
   
   
2. Make sure the executive team supports the initiative. If company leadership does not support the employee suggestion box initiative, it will be more likely to fail. Employees at all levels need to know that management cares about the feedback they provide and will actually take it to heart. If the executive team is apprehensive, try educating them on the benefits of anonymous employee feedback. You can start with The Benefits of an Anonymous Employee Suggestion box, The Research Behind Anonymous Employee Feedback, and Why Are Many People Choosing to Stay Anonymous? You can also find many more articles on our blog.
   
   
3. Customize each box for its intended use. Now that you’ve created a box for each type of employee feedback you want to collect, you can customize each one so employees use it correctly. Start by adding a few lines of introduction text to each box. This is where you can ask for feedback in specific areas and assure employees that all feedback will remain anonymous. To make sure employees know they’re at the right place, you can create a custom web address for each box, upload your logo, and choose a button color to match. If you want to make sure that only certain employees access your box, you can password-protect it and/or restrict it by IP address. As we previously mentioned, you can also add up to 25 questions to each box.
   
   
4. Create a launch plan. Whether you slowly roll out your employee feedback program or aim for a big push, you should create a plan for how it will be introduced to employees. Here are several ideas:
   • Send a company-wide email (preferably from leadership) explaining your feedback initiative with links to your boxes.
   • Post your box link to the employee intranet or other employee-only websites.
   • Print out your box web address and post it in employee gathering spots.
   • Ask management and HR employees to include a link to their boxes in email signatures.
     
     
5. Continue promoting and sharing the boxes. As we covered in another post, the feedback loop is a revolving cycle. It needs a continuous supply of honest, open feedback to continue evolving and effecting positive change. If your initial round of feedback is light, don’t be discouraged. It can often take a few tries before employees become comfortable leaving anonymous feedback.
   
   
6. Read, follow through, and communicate. One of the unique features of Incogneato is the ability to hold anonymous conversations with your respondents. If feedback is unclear, engage the employee anonymously and ask for more information. Once you feel the issue has been solved – or on a path to being solved – reach back out to the employee to let them know. You can also use Incogneato’s Anonymous Voting and Discussion tool to crowdsource an idea with a larger group.

If you haven’t already, you can give Incogneato a try for free by setting up your first anonymous suggestion box. No credit card is required during the trial.

The post Best Practices for Creating an Employee Suggestion Box appeared first on Incogneato Anonymous Suggestion Box.

Traditionally, collecting employee feedback was limited to annual performance reviews or irregular feedback requests. Smart organizations gradually realized that employee feedback should function as an ongoing loop, ever evolving to strengthen the organization.

Using a “loop” as a visual indicator helps to convey the revolving nature of employee feedback. The loop begins with the collection of candid, honest feedback, which management then analyzes and uses to develop a plan of action. Once the plan is in place, employees are encouraged to continue submitting feedback and the plan of action continues to evolve. The result is a stronger organization with happier employees, who in turn create more satisfied customers.

Limitations of Direct Employee Feedback

In order for a feedback loop to continue evolving, it needs a continuous supply of honest, open feedback. Without it, action plans can become watered down, or in the worst case, never develop. As we’ve covered in another post on anonymity, employees tend to avoid negativity when providing direct feedback and are reluctant to irritate or challenge their superiors. In an article on conducting employee surveys, HBR noted that when asked to submit feedback, anonymity is the number one concern for employees. The same study shows that when employees have a guarantee of anonymity, they are more likely to submit honest, productive feedback — and even submit more of it.

Closing the Feedback Loop with Incogneato

Incogneato plays an essential role in both closing the employee feed loop and helping it continue to revolve. As a trusted third party, Incogneato helps organizations collect anonymous employee feedback without having to worry about inadvertently storing log files or otherwise finding out the identity of an employee who wished to remain anonymous. With a trusted system in place, employees will be more likely to continue submitting the type of honest, productive feedback that keeps the feedback loop revolving.

How Is Incogneato Different from Other Anonymous Suggestion Boxes?

One of the key differences between Incogneato and other suggestion boxes is the ability to hold an anonymous conversation. Often times that initial piece of employee feedback leads to more questions that would otherwise go unanswered. Our Anonymous Chat feature lets you immediately ask a follow up question or for request further clarification. This one feature is key to a more effective employee feedback loop, as it helps management to more thoroughly understand the issue before an action plan is developed. Another difference is price.

We believe that all organizations should be able to safely collect anonymous feedback without having to pay hefty monthly fees.

If you haven’t already, give Incogneato a try by setting up a free anonymous suggestion box. No credit card is required during your trial.

The post Closing the Employee Feedback Loop with Anonymous Feedback appeared first on Incogneato Anonymous Suggestion Box.

If you know what we do at Incogneato, then you can likely assume our position on this question. However, as the number of companies we help collect anonymous employee feedback continues to grow, we uncover new reasons for why it is so effective. 

First, the counterargument…

Most often, we hear “anonymity breeds negativity.” It’s hard to argue with that one. Just hang out on Reddit for a few minutes and you’ll see it firsthand. However, we’ve found that anonymity does not exclusively breed negativity. And oftentimes when it does, the negative feedback is also constructive. The trick is to brush off the negativity — and if you can — learn to pick out the constructive pieces.

Take for example the following (fictitious) piece of feedback: 

“Bob the manager is universally hated. He treats everyone like garbage and genuinely has a chip on his shoulder. I quit because of him.”

Obviously, the feedback is harsh and Bob would prefer not to be told off in this manner. At the same time, it’s brutally honest. Bob likely does have issues with his employees and may have never known they felt this way before. He may have previously viewed himself as strict but fair based on face-to-face feedback he’s received. If Bob can move past the comment’s bluntness, he can change for the better.

Does anonymity breed honesty?

According to HR expert and author Steve Cohen, many employees fall into the category of flighters. In other words, they eschew conflict and often busy themselves with other work or avoid managers altogether when there is perceived conflict. Flighters are also more likely to withhold knowledge and gossip internally, which is never healthy for an organization. On the opposing end of course are fighters. These people gain power by force or personality. Often times when fighters go head-to-head with flighters, the flighter backs down and decides to withhold key information. Anonymous tools that remove the risk of conflict (like Incogneato) are highly effective in gaining honest insights from these conflict-averse employees.

But my organization is open and communicative. Can we still benefit from anonymous feedback?

While unlikely, let’s pretend there exists an organization where every employee and manager is approachable, cordial, and accepts feedback graciously. Can this organization still benefit from anonymous feedback? Absolutely, and here’s why. Sitting in front of a screen composing feedback allows the employee to collect their thoughts without having to focus on a person in front of them. We are biologically attuned to the emotions of those around us. Removing them from the situation opens up our ability to convey our thoughts honestly without thinking about how others will immediately react. In other words, employees are in a safe place where they can focus on the feedback instead of the person. 

I’m convinced. But how is Incogneato different from other anonymous feedback tools?

One of the key differences between Incogneato and other suggestion boxes is the ability to hold an anonymous conversation. Often times that initial piece of employee feedback leads to more questions that would otherwise go unanswered. Our Anonymous Chat feature lets you immediately ask a follow up question or request further clarification.

Of course, there’s also the fact that Incogneato is less expensive than most competitors. How do we do it? We run lean. We do not employ a sales force so our team is solely focused on making the best product we can. 

We believe that all organizations should be able to safely collect anonymous feedback without having to pay hefty monthly fees.

When you’re ready, give Incogneato a try by setting up a free anonymous suggestion box. No credit card is required during your trial.

The post Does Anonymous Workplace Feedback Really Work? appeared first on Incogneato Anonymous Suggestion Box.

Before initiating an anonymous feedback program, many organizations attempt to forecast its annual value in terms of revenue saved or earned. Those who have tested anonymous feedback programs in the past have an excellent benchmark to gauge future results, but for those who have not, forecasting can be a challenge. Cost-effective and simple-to-setup solutions like Incogneato make it easy to launch a short-term test to collect data without incurring a significant expense. However, some organizations have internal policies (or preferences) that require a forecast before any program can be initiated.

Here are several strategies to help you forecast or gauge the hard value of your anonymous feedback program:

Look at Employee Retention

According to SHRM, the average cost per hire is $4,129. Another study found the cost of re-hiring a midrange position ($30-$50K per year) to be 20% of the employee’s future salary. But how do you know if you’ve actually retained an employee by addressing their anonymous complaints?

Due to the nature of anonymous feedback, you cannot actually tie an individual employee to a problem solved. You can, however, look at the severity of the anonymous complaints you’ve addressed. For example, you will likely not lose an employee over unpalatable vending machine options, but if you seriously address multiple complaints about a toxic manager or co-worker, it may be reasonable to assume that you have retained an employee. The Balance Careers published a list of the top reasons employees quit their jobs. Reasons ranged from sour relationships with coworkers to a lack of autonomy on the job.

For those forecasting potential results of an anonymous feedback program, it may be useful to look at past exit interview records and make a list of reasons employees cited for leaving. Then determine which employees could have been retained had you known about the issue and had a chance to fix it. Research shows that employees are more candid when their personal anonymity is guaranteed and may not share important information while still employed.

Are Your Customers Happy?

Customer happiness can be a difficult metric to directly measure, but in many cases can be indirectly observed by looking at repurchasing behavior or loyalty. For organizations with customer accounts, tying initial purchases to repeat purchases is simple. Those with referral or affiliate programs have the added benefit of measuring customer evangelism (word-of-mouth marketing).

Like with employee retention, you cannot tie a specific customer to their anonymous feedback, but you can look at trends while the anonymous feedback program was in place. If your repurchasing/loyalty rate jumped while you were addressing anonymous customer feedback, you may be able to assume a causal relationship.

For those forecasting potential results of an anonymous feedback program, it can be useful to look at past customer retention rates over time. If they are stagnant or low for your industry, look at exit surveys you may have collected and try to determine if any issues could have been solved had you known about them. You can also reach out to past customers to ask why they moved on.

Look at Recent Growth

Lastly, you may be able to tie organizational growth to an anonymous feedback program. It’s easy to downplay the significance of your feedback program by calling it a “simple suggestion box”, but organizations are complex entities with many inputs and outputs. A good anonymous feedback program lets you address key customer and employee concerns or ideas in a safe, meaningful way that can have massive impacts on long-term growth.

Incogneato makes it easy to collect and address anonymous feedback from employees, customers, or just about anyone else. If you haven’t already, start your free trial now. Not convinced yet? Here are five reasons to choose Incogneato for your anonymous feedback.

The post Putting a Hard Value on Your Anonymous Feedback Program appeared first on Incogneato Anonymous Suggestion Box.

A common question asked by those collecting feedback is whether or not to respond to negative feedback. In our opinion, the answer is YES.

Positive feedback is great. It’s a virtual pat on the back. More importantly, it validates the work you’ve done and makes you feel good about yourself or your organization. Negative feedback on the other hand is much easier to ignore. It can often present additional work or invalidate the work you’ve done. But it should never be ignored. Here’s why:

It offers a rare path to improvement.

Trolls aside, people leave negative feedback because they are trying to help. They care about your organization or about it’s potential benefits. For every person who leaves negative feedback, many more will stay silent and simply walk away. Take negative feedback seriously and use it to improve your product or service. It may even be the case that no improvements are necessary there was a simple misunderstanding. In any case, you should always reply back to the respondent.

It opens an important dialogue.

It can be very angering to have feedback ignored, especially if the person is already upset. A quick reply can diffuse the situation immediately and open a meaningful dialogue between you and the respondent. You might not be able to solve their problem right away, but letting them know you care is a good first step. If you’re using a canned response, consider customizing it a bit by reiterating their concerns. As you work toward a solution, reply back with occasional updates or an estimated timeframe.

Not responding is responding.

Giving a respondent the cold shoulder signals that you don’t care enough to respond. At this point, they may take their grievance public and potentially damage your organization. A quick response only takes a minute and could save you significant trouble in the future.

What about anonymous feedback?

Before the release of Incogneato, replying to anonymous feedback was difficult, if not impossible. Incogneato solved that problem by allowing organizations to anonymously communicate with those who leave feedback. Acting as an intermediary, Incogneato relays messages back and forth, allowing the respondent to remain anonymous.

Improve your organization with Incogneato. Start your free trial now. Not convinced yet? Here are five reasons to choose Incogneato for your anonymous feedback.

The post Should You Reply to Negative Feedback? appeared first on Incogneato Anonymous Suggestion Box.

There are many anonymous suggestion box solutions out there with varied features and philosophies. Incogneato includes many of the features offered by enterprise-level solutions at a fraction of the cost. Here are five reasons to choose Incogneato:

1: Lowest price
It’s amazing what some charge for an anonymous suggestion box. We work with organizations of all size, so we have to keep our prices within reach of everyone. That’s why plans start at just $19 per month.

2: We’re a trusted third party.
When collecting anonymous feedback, it’s important for your respondents to feel comfortable. Collecting anonymous feedback on your own server can make employees feel exposed and vulnerable. Even with the best intentions, you may inadvertently store log files that could later identify your respondents. Unless they choose to identify themselves, Incogneato keeps your respondents anonymous.

3: We’re the only one with anonymous chat.
One of Incogneato’s key features is the ability to hold an anonymous conversation. Often times that initial anonymous suggestion leads to more questions that would otherwise go unanswered. Anonymous chat lets you immediately ask a follow up question or for clarification.

4: We let you customize your box to fit your organization.
It’s important for your employees to recognize your brand when leaving feedback. That’s why we include lots of ways to customize your box including a your logo, a custom URL, and an introduction paragraph.

5: We take anonymity seriously.
While other suggestion boxes offer the option to stay anonymous, Incogneato is always anonymous because we believe strongly that anonymity breeds honesty. And there’s research to back it up. The Harvard Business Review found that respondents are much more likely participate in a survey if their anonymity is guaranteed.

We also take privacy and security seriously. In addition to using 256-bit SSL encryption for all communication, we also do not retain any personal identifying information of the person leaving a suggestion, other than an encrypted email address (if they choose to include one).

If you haven’t already, give Incogneato a try by setting up a free anonymous suggestion box. No credit card is required during your trial.

The post 5 Reasons to Choose Incogneato for Your Anonymous Feedback appeared first on Incogneato Anonymous Suggestion Box.