In the past, quick-service restaurants tapped into consumer opinions on product quality, customer service, and other performance concerns by conducting on-site or telephone surveys, sifting through comment cards collected on-site, or simply by talking with customers in the restaurant. The information might have languished on someone’s desk or made its way into an internal memo, barely turning a head, much less spurring a company into action.

But in today’s electronic age, with a plethora of social-media networks exploding in popularity and consumers sharing their thoughts with anyone and everyone who will listen, quick-serve operators are forced to join the conversation.

As Jeff Zabin, vice president and research fellow with the Aberdeen Group in Boston, stated during the recent webinar “Why It Pays to Listen to the Voice of the Customer,” there are two tasks that companies must complete in order to successfully harness the power of online customer feedback.

“There is a need for companies to passively listen to what customers are saying in online conversation that’s happening in social media,” Zabin said. “At the same time, companies need to take a more active approach and solicit consumer opinion through customer feedback–management capabilities.”

While many businesses are willing to acknowledge the importance of consumer feedback, they are not always taking steps to cash in on this asset. “[Customer feedback] is given more lip service,” says James Kohn of James Kohn Restaurant Consulting in New Haven, Connecticut. “People are talking more about it than are actually doing something about it.” As a result, Kohn says, quick-serve operators are missing out on a valuable resource.

“Feedback is customers telling you what their expectations are,” he says. “How great is that? How can you exceed expectations if you don’t know what they are? Ignore them at your own peril, I say.”

Reaching Out

One popular tool is an invitation on receipts to participate in a telephone or online survey. Customers who take the survey are rewarded with such incentives as a discount on future visits, free food items, or the chance to win prizes. Still other restaurants are reaching out through their own Web sites, online discussion communities, and interactive polls. Many more, though, are taking advantage of the variety of social-media outlets available to both the general public and businesses.

Free online sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Yelp provide avenues for many quick-serve restaurants to tap into their customers’ minds and see what they think and want from today’s quick serves, both at the corporate and local levels.

In July, Vitrue, a company that calculates scores on a brand’s social conversations, introduced its Top 25 Most Social Restaurant Brands, with Starbucks, Subway, and McDonald’s landing in the top three spots. In fact, the entire top 10 is composed of quick serves, with seven more scattered throughout the remaining 15.

Of those restaurants in the top 10, half also maintain fan pages on Facebook along with an official Twitter account. Entries on these sites include comments from patrons, company announcements of new products or store locations, and contests. For instance, on Dunkin’ Donuts’ Facebook page, the company showcases its “Fan of the Week” in its profile photograph. On Wendy’s Facebook page, the company conducted a poll to find out customers’ favorite flavor of its boneless chicken wings.

Regardless of the content, quick-serve restaurants are getting involved in the process, which is crucial to obtaining successful feedback. “The key to this is brand engagement, getting customers involved in your business,” says Lon Safko, corporate consultant, social-media strategist, and author of The Social Media Bible. “It’s all about spreading the brand, and it costs you nothing.”

Plus, according to Kohn, interacting with consumers online provides a way for quick serves to influence sales, whether or not they are a franchisee with a well-known brand or a local entrepreneur. “You create a sense of community around your business so people feel a part of something,” he says. “That gives you an advantage that is not easily duplicated.”

Take a Hint

That sense of community is apparent in Starbucks’ site MyStarbucks-Idea.com. The Web site specifically seeks out ideas from customers on how to perfect their experience at the store. Visitors can share their ideas, vote on other people’s ideas, and see how Starbucks incorporates the most popular ideas into its day-to-day operations.

A prime example of this process at work started in March 2008 when Starbucks customers learned the company had removed the Yukon Blend from its menu. Fans of the brew immediately started posting requests on MyStarbucksIdea.com for an explanation and to encourage the company to bring back the product. On August 11 of this year, the company responded, acknowledging the comments and announcing the product would return to stores in September.

Seek, Gather, and Respond

For quick serves interested in using online customer feedback to their advantage, gathering the feedback and then applying it to business operations is key. Companies like Empathica and Restaurant.com can help conduct surveys and compile research information to help develop key insight into the customer experience.

For those on a smaller budget, tools like Google Alerts, TweetDeck, and Yelp’s review sites can provide essential information such as how often someone searches for or discusses a restaurant online, what the most popular menu items are, and which locations customers like best. “When others comment on your brand, you need to participate in that conversation,” Safko says.

While it may take some time to compile customer feedback, Zabin said that insights gleaned from this information can benefit multiple parts of the organization. For instance, due to constructive comments, quick-serve operators could see improved performance in customer service and improved product quality in operations. In the area of marketing, consumer input could help operators understand what specific messages and offerings are likely to resonate in the marketplace, Zabin said.

Also, get the word out to customers that you hear them and are responding to their comments. “Customers want to know that their voices are being heard and that their feedback is being taken seriously above and beyond simple acknowledgement that the feedback was received,” Zabin said.

After all, if the feedback falls on deaf ears, then the time and money invested to gather it was wasted. “You need to follow up to be productive,” Kohn says.