The surveys are created and stored on the Internet, and when a customer leaves a retail establishment with a purchase, the receipt has printed on it instructions on how to take a simple survey from a touch-tone phone, including a cell phone.

Most feedback surveys can be completed in less than three minutes and can be as simple as listening to the voice prompts and pushing the appropriate keys, or the process can include leaving voice recordings stored as MP3 files. To get customers to participate, companies generally offer some type of discount or incentive for a future visit.

Where the rubber really meets the road is on the server/clerk side as each survey is then retrievable directly from the World Wide Web, via e-mail or by fax, either by management or supervisors, or privately by the frontline employee.

Imagine how sheepish the server in an unnamed Salt Lake restaurant must have felt upon hearing a recording of a customer from the previous day complain that the clam chowder they had ordered didn't contain any clams. (Hanks swears this really happened. He also explained that many restaurants have their cooks focus on the main entrees, leaving the serve staff to handle such things as ladling clam chowder into bowls. And if you don't dip the ladle all the way to the bottom of the pan, you don't get clams in your clam chowder. Who knew?)

After years of trying to get her stylists to push/suggest conditioners and shampoos on customers when they paid their bills, Clara Osterhage, owner of 14 Dayton, Ohio-area Great Clips hair salon franchises decided to give CONNECT a try. Two months later, sales of hair care products in the salons had nearly trebled.

Osterhage and stylists also began hearing direct voice recordings from customers, such as:

"When you are cutting my son's hair, speak to him, not just to me."

"The stylist blew hair off of my neck with her mouth."

"My stylist never recommends any hair care products."

"It doesn't matter what I think, what the stylists think," Osterhage said. "It matters what the customers think."

Today Osterhage has CONNECT working in all 14 of her Great Clips franchise locations and she loves it.

Companies throughout Utah and around the United States are using Mindshare's CONNECT every day, although not all of them are comfortable letting others know that they're using the system. (I guess some companies are concerned customers might see it as a negative. I think anything that improves customer service is always a positive.)

The real amazing part about CONNECT is its price, which starts at $99 per month for as many as 100 completed surveys. Hiring a mystery shopper to go into a store or restaurant and then report back on the experience can easily cost that much per visit and often require weeks to get the report completed.

Prior to last week I had never even heard of Mindshare. If you're interested in learning more, check 'em out online at www.mshare.net.

And if you really want to know, drop me a line and I'll tell you the name of the restaurant, but don't ask for Greg as your server.

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David Politis leads Politis Communications, a public relations, investor relations and marketing communications agency specializing in the high-tech and life science markets. E-mail: dpolitis@politis.com.