• Discover how they feel about your offering and brand. Know if your brand delivers on its promise in customers’ eyes.
• Determine what they want from your company. This is one way to gather early input on where to direct new initiatives and how to modify marketing.
• Extend your relationship with your best and most influential customers. Tied to your brand, these customers have strong feelings and insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your offering and want to help you.
• Test ideas for quantitative research. Tap into your customer base to test planned market research.
• Ask users for input. Place a “feedback” text link in the footer on every Web site page or in the site’s navigation bar. Collect customer input at every touch point.
• Monitor and respond to non-customer service feedback.
• Randomly select customers and request permission to talk with them.
• Talk to customers. Consider creating a list of questions to ask.
• Notes will help create a sense of the true importance of an issue after the conversation fades.
• Leverage customer service. Gather additional information from and about your customers.
• Thanking customers for their time. This will build goodwill and extend your relationship.
• Maintaining ongoing contact with these customers.
• Compile customer feedback, good and bad. Break out input by categories relevant to your business and brand. […] Use this input as the basis for business changes or quantitative research.
• Track and include feedback indicators.
• Distribute to senior management, marketing, product, technology, PR, legal, and investor relations.
• Monitor cost and benefits of the ongoing, proactive customer communication program.

(ClickZ Actionable Analysis)