1. ISD 641 – Dr. Dan Surry Rachel M. Mudrich University of South Alabama April 22, 2011

2.  Mrs. Mud’s Cake Bites is a family owned and operated company. It is a home based business that designs and bakes little bite sized portions of delicious cake combinations for people to enjoy at any celebration.

3.  The performance I am wishing to gather feedback on is the quality of the product when crated in mass quantities. MMCB has been very well received when created in batches of 12 to 24 at a time, but as the company grows so does the demand for the number of cake bites at one event. We wish to maintain the same quality of cake bite with a batch of 100 as we have with a batch of 24. This would be on the level of a business unit as well as an individual level, as there is only one individual responsible for designing and creating all the bites for the business.

4.  Mrs. Mud’s Cake Bites reaches out to a large, diverse group of customers. These bites will work for any occasion: weddings, luncheons, baby showers, wedding showers, birthdays, lingerie showers, and more. The target audience would be any type of party planner or one who has event hosting connections that can always recommend Mrs. Mud’s Cake Bites to be at the event/occasion they are involved in hosting or participating. The range for this type of target customer would, ultimately, be on a national scale, starting at covering local counties.

5.  Mrs. Mud’s Cake Bites are very appealing to all types of people. Since the beginning of the business, the consistent customer basis has been local community members who host small parties such as graduation parties, wedding and baby showers, and a few wedding receptions. The business has stayed on the small scale, due to focus on growth and quality of the product.

6.  To decide if the mass produced cake bites are still the same quality of product as smaller batched bites, I plan to employ several methods to gather feedback from customers.  Traditional Market Research Surveys, word of mouth, face to face  User Groups Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter  User Conferences

7.  In a small business setting, customer word of mouth is one marketing tool that greatly influences the growth of your business. Customers talking to other customers; using this same thought process, I can gather feedback from my customers, by talking to them. When a relationship is built, you can openly talk to customers:  Did you enjoy your purchase?  Do you have any suggestions to make your experience better?  Would you recommend our product to others? *Surveys given out at time of purchase to be returned for a reward would also get you some instant feedback in perhaps a more anonymous fashion that is more appealing to the consumer who is answering.

8.  An additional methods to acquire feedback will be to open a forum on the social network pages that many customers and potential customers use on a daily basis. Networks such as Facebook and Twitter offer consumers to post what they think and feel about a product for everyone to read. Here, the customer can provide instant feedback from the privacy of their homes, and as the seller you can offer incentives on these sites for any who do give feedback.

9.  When thinking of a User Conference, I think by participating in events such as bridal shows, social event connections, charity events, and silent auctions, you can get your business name out into the public eye. At these events, I would have a booth with samples for people to try and offer verbal feedback. I would mix in samples from a small batch and samples from a large batch to see if the feedback varies based on the sample. Of course, another way to get feedback from this type is if any one calls to book me for their event. If no one calls, I can take that as feedback as well that things did not go very well.

10.  I feel that these three types of feedback methods are appropriate for my business situation, because they are involving constant communication with the customer. When working with food, the feedback determines your entire product. With negative feedback, you change the product to make it better, with positive you leave things alone and keep powering forward. These methods also appeal to the instant feedback I feel is important to get as a business owner, so that adjustments can be made to better the product quicker.

11.  My plan to gather the needed feedback is to include each of the three methods, but not simultaneously. I feel that getting feedback is important, but if you try to get too much too fast, you appear demanding and overwhelm the customers. I plan to gather the feedback with these methods in a set of steps.

12.  For the first step, I’d do general research tactics on my product with my customers. Surveys are a tool I’d use to just ask general questions to my customers about the quality of the product and how it can be improved if needed. In this step, the focus is on just asking questions with the consumer to see the initial stance of the business and product quality.

13.  The second step in the feedback process would be to start generating discussions between the customers about the business, product, and overall quality of experience.  Facebook pages  Blogs  Twitter discussions *All these social networking sites allow customers to talk and discuss amongst themselves about your product, and you can read their feedback.

14.  The final step, after talking, surveys, and user discussions, will be to offer places to provide actual samples of the product. This way, the business generated or not generated would serve as the feedback from the consumers.  Bridal Shows  Charity events  Catered events

15.  The types of feedback I plan to receive are:  Is the product good and worthy to continue?  Can you tell a difference between smaller batch products and large batch products?  Which samples are better than others? *The main feedback I wish to gather is from the final step, and that is business based on what the customer thinks. If they like the product, they will keep coming back; if they don’t, they won’t buy further products from me.