We are back for another interview on Unlocking Your World of Creativity. Today Mark traveled over to Dallas-FortWorth to talk with the co-founder/creator of Real Time Feedback, Adam Alfia. 

Mark discussed with Adam his innovative new platform and how it’s changing the way a customer can communicate with upper management of businesses about issues they are experiencing in a very simple and effective way. Whether that be at a restaurant, a recreational park, a medical clinic, and even a grocery store. 

“We like to say, give them help before they Yelp!” 

What is it?

It's a QR code. We make it very simple. We don't use an app. Customers never have to download anything.

By scanning/taking a picture on your phone of the QR code of the business you’re at, you are then automatically taken to that business site. 

Here’s a step-by-step procedure:

• Scan QR code 
• Takes you to a specific website page
• You put in whatever your issue is 
• Submit (you can be anonymous if you want!)
• Management of the business receives the message through email, text, or through the company’s app connected to business
• Management responds to that customer (YOU) and the customer gets a response via text message on their phone. 
• Begins the open dialogue on the issue
• The issue gets resolved in a quick and effective way 

“When that customer walks across the threshold of your door, they're now in your world. You really have to do a lot to keep 'em engaged, keep them happy, and if they're not happy, you have to make it very easy for them to let someone know.” 

Examples of how this works:

Example scenario #1: Let's say you're in the men's restroom at a business or an arena and you see that the bathroom is out of paper towels and you end up walking out wiping your hands on your pants. You're not gonna walk around and find somebody, right?

You scan the QR codes already loaded with the location of the restrooms and it's already prepopulated with the words “paper towels are out” and you can then add more and even say, “Hey, the sink is overflowing or the toilet's running” 

Example scenario #2:

How many times have you gone to the grocery store and you go to return your cart in the parking lot and the whole cart area is full of carts? You're not gonna walk back in with your groceries and find a manager. 

What Real Time does is have the QR codes ON the cart area. So when you're walking out, you just scan your phone and it automatically sends a message without you having to enter anything that says the parking lot needs attention, please come out. 

Now you're letting the business know something, and once again you can add additional information.

Something to note:  Grocery stores and retail stores spend millions of dollars a year for big brands on parking lot dings and dents from runaway carts. We can help solve that very easily or at least a majority of it by knowing when the carts are outta control in your parking lot.

Example scenario #3:

You’re out at the park with your kids and there's a swing broken or there's a sprinkler head that's leaking or anything that you see that needs attention. Instead of having personnel visit the park once a week and aimlessly walk around looking for stuff, now the resident or visitor can be your eyes and ears and let you know about all kinds of issues that really matter to them. 

Scan the QR code -  it opens up a ticket, they can take care of it, and they can respond. They can send the resident/visitor a message back saying, “Hey Mr. Simpson, thank you for sending up feedback last week. You'll be happy to know the swing is fixed now.”   

Family dynamic being in business together:

“Real Time feedback was really born out of us being frustrated whenever we go to restaurants and see a lackluster performance from the staff or the food's bad.” 

Real Time Feedback was created and founded by Adam and his brother Kfir Alfia. 

They have been in business together since 2005 when Adam started the concierge company, Maestro.  Adam says he’s more of the sales guy and creative process guy. Kfir has been very instrumental in building relationships with people. 

“You can say things that you cannot say to other people. And also we spend a lot of social time together. So we're always talking about “what if” scenarios and questions.”

What’s new to look out for? 

Mass Call Feature:

Adam and his brother have realized that a lot of managers wanna have a   conversation with a customer and NOT just through a text. They want to pick up the phone and call that customer. Most of the time it's from their cell phone. They find managers are very hesitant about calling a customer, especially a happy customer from their cell phone. They don’t want to have to use their personal cell phone number. 

Real Time Feedback just built a mass call feature where managers can actually call a customer directly from their personal cell and it shows up as a different number as Uber does. It hides both numbers. This is the next platform feature to look out for AND on top of that, the manager can record a video that they then can put on Real Time’s app that will then send that as a text message to a customer. 

Be sure to go to Real Time Feedback to learn more!

Copyright 2024 Mark Stinson

Speaker 2: Thank you, mark. Great to be

Speaker 1: Here. And as we think about creativity in the context of creating a brand, I mean the experience is paramount. How have you seen with your clients and in your industries that you work with the changes in that experience?

Speaker 1: . I like that. The old sign that used to say, if you like it, tell a friend. If you don't like it, please speak with the manager. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Well, and particularly with your background, and you described this as good for either the local corner auto shop all the way up to the Fortune 500 brands like Infiniti and Mitsubishi and Ford. But how is this really, let's go back to the brand. [00:02:30] How do you think this is contributing to the brand building for clients?

Speaker 2: It was best you [00:03:30] had a beeper if you're lucky. But when you have everything interaction behind, whether it's Facebook, TikTok, text messaging, my kids almost never answer my calls anymore. So when you have them grow up in an interaction space where they're not communicating face to face and then they go out in the workforce and they don't recognize when a customer's unhappy, it's very easy also on a chain of restaurants and you can sit and look at a table at any table [00:04:00] and really tell if that customer, if you know what to pick up on, is happy with their food, happy with the atmosphere, just by looking at their face, their mannerisms, et cetera. The younger generation really doesn't have those skills. And when a customer is upset, they don't really have the empathy and understand how to react to that. So giving them an opportunity for that customer to now engage with management and say, Hey, I'm not having a great experience, or You guys need to fix that, you guys need to fix this. It really opens up the door for how do I help make the place that [00:04:30] I want to visit a better place, solve my issue, and really leave a happy customer. A lot of cus companies are really trying to do that after the fact through surveys and et cetera. But Nemo's, last time you filled out a survey and somebody actually called you and said, Hey, I wanna discuss your survey , how can we get you back?

Speaker 1: And I always check that box, you wanna be called? I say, sure, why not If I can help you out and the hotel never calls me. No,

Speaker 1: , yeah, the real time being the key here. Well I love on your website, Adam, that there literally is how it works page. I can't tell you how many of these sort magic apps we hear about and we go, I really don't know [00:06:00] how it works and you go on it and I can't sign up or I can't register. It sounds like you've made it pretty simple. I love the step by step process, but maybe you could give us an overview of literally how does this work?

Speaker 2: So they'll put [00:07:00] in their name, their phone number, and once they submit, it sends management a notification. If a manager has our app for the business on their phone or behind a computer, they can also get a text message and they can instantly respond to that customer and that customer gets a response via text message on their phone. So now that opens up that dialogue. That's super simple. We even have a patent pending on something where we call trigger codes. That code is already prepopulated with information. So if you're, let's say in a men's [00:07:30] restroom at a business or an arena and you see that the bathroom, how many times have you walked into a bathroom and there's no paper towels and you're walking out wiping your hands on your pants, right? , you're not gonna walk around and find somebody, Hey, you need more paper towels.

Speaker 1: . Well, and we've been talking about some of these industries that are natural and we think of intuitively, restaurants, auto service, retail stores. But again, your website [00:09:00] lists a few unique industries and locations that I wouldn't have thought about. Medical facilities and parks and recreation mean. Imagine being at a park and leaving a question and review and issue or at a medical facility. I don't think I've ever been asked How was your experience at the clinic?

Speaker 1: [00:10:30] Well, and if you're are trying to run a repeat business, getting that kind of feedback, well maybe I'll go back, maybe I'll try it again. Maybe they fixed the issue that I had a problem with.

Speaker 2: And now with our platform, it's [00:11:30] very easy to do. So we actually have our QR codes in several grocery stores. How many times have you gone to the grocery store and you go to return your cart in the parking lot and the whole cart area is full of carts? You're not gonna walk back in with your groceries and find a manager. Hey, so what we do is we have the QR codes on the cart area. So when you're walking out, you just scan your phone and it automatically sends a message without you having to enter anything that says the parking lot needs attention, please, please [00:12:00] come out. So now you're letting the business know something, you can add additional information. But a lot of grocery stores and retail stores spend millions of dollars a year for big brands on parking lot dings and dents from runaway carts, you know, can solve that very easily or at least a majority of it by knowing when the carts are outta control in your parking lot.

Speaker 2: That's correct, mark.

Speaker 1: All right, perfect. Well let's talk about your own process. I mean, you've got a business that you're building and running. It's a family business too. Maybe you could share a little bit about that dynamic.

Speaker 2: My kids and I, we adopted a puppy, a puppy from the pound. And we got home and we forgot to get all the essentials, crate dog food, et cetera. We went to Walmart. It was late at night at 11 and we had a terrible experience with the cashier. She lied to me [00:14:00] about a couple things about how many items they can check out at the self checkout with, cuz I needed help cuz we had a large crate. And by the time we checked out she was gone. And I asked the girl, I go, Hey, this girl says you can't scan more than five items. And she goes, oh yeah we can. She, she's lazy, she doesn't like to work. So I found the girl down the hall on our cell phone and I approached her and I said, why'd you lie to me? You know, should have rung me up.

Speaker 1: Well and then there's the kind of look in the mirror, the physician healed by self, the sort of shoemaker make your own shoes. What about getting feedback from your team or your collaborators [00:15:30] or your clients? Not to say that it's all mechanical and developed as this feedback loop, but what is it about getting feedback and how do you absorb it, let it in, react to it, respond to it?

Speaker 2: So employees oftentimes, if they have a gripe or they have a compliment, they can even be anonymous. They'll send me feedback. And when I get that, I take that personally because these are my brands and I wanna make sure even not only in customers, but also employees are really happy to be under our umbrella and doing great work. And when you give customers, when you give employees recognition, that really goes a long way. I'd say about 25% of our feedbacks that we get are actually accolades [00:17:00] by customers about employees. And we make sure that we publish that, send the customer, the employee an email saying, Hey John, great job. Look what a customer said about you today. So the thinking goes a long way. People love recognition.

Speaker 2: Well, a lot of employees would like to recommend changes that would make their life and their workplace environment better. But a lot of times people are shy about raising their hand and being, making a suggestion or a complaint. And a lot of times they just keep quiet and then eventually it builds and they get frustrated and say, I'm leaving nobody ever, I don't have a voice in this company. But if you know that you can submit something [00:18:00] anonymously, anonymous, anonymously, and that the ceo, um, or your boss is gonna see that, I think it really empowers employees to have a voice and let their employers know exactly what they think. And being anonymous right now, if you wanted to send your boss an anonymous email, there's really, other than you getting a fake email address and going through all that, there's really no way. But if, you know, go into the break room and see a QR code and says, Hey, we really care about your [00:18:30] experience here at our company.

Speaker 1: And how is it different, I guess, or better than just the old suggestion box on the wall? I mean, anonymous is certainly a good advantage. How do we make sure that it's not just by send a message out that the managers and the executives really are committed to listening?

Speaker 1: Well that's what I was thinking. You'd think it's anonymous, but I could, I can see your handwriting a mile away. Yeah.

Speaker 1: . Well, thinking ahead Adam, and looking over the horizon, I mean here we are really steering 2023 first quarter right in the eye. What are things [00:21:00] that are you looking forward to? What are either new products, new developments, or even just new creative goals that you have for yourself?

Speaker 2: So usually when somebody just responds to you, that's one thing, but if I had a bad experience and the manager records a video, Hey Mark, this is Adam, I'm the manager here at the restaurant, man, I appreciate your feedback. We're gonna take that into consideration. Hopefully we can make that change for you next time you come visit us, come see us. And then I send that and you open that up and go, wow. I mean, how many times have you ever got a video response back from somebody for a complaint that you made? ? I think that shows that company really cares. It gives it a little bit more [00:22:30] of a personal, such as getting a text message. So I think that really adds another dimension to another layer of personal attention to our platform.

Speaker 1: I love that. Well thanks for sharing both kind of the past to how it was developed and the current, where the company is and the forward looking where you think the future's going. Really enjoyed our conversation Adam.

Speaker 2: So did I. Thank you, mark.

Speaker 2: Thank you Mark.