Market research firm rewards consumers for attaching product feedback to barcodes

Japan's Research & Innovation startup is getting consumers to attach comments to product barcodes to help businesses more easily track feedback.

Social media is an incredible tool for businesses to see what consumers are saying about their products, but the comments are often unorganized and difficult to collate. In the past, innovations such as OpenLabel have let consumers attach their opinions and information to product barcodes to alert other shoppers. Now Japan's Research & Innovation startup is using a similar technology to help businesses tie consumer opinions to their products.

Customer surveys and focus groups are often time-consuming and expensive to organize, and rely on the willingness of consumers to offer up their opinions. Through R&I's Mycomment system, customers can receive free products and even cash as an incentive to provide feedback, without having to leave their home. The product is sent directly to them, and then using the company's Code app, they simply scan the barcode and begin to add their ratings and comments. The information is then sent straight to R&I, which passes on the data to companies to help them improve and develop future products.

The system enables companies to quickly see what consumers are saying about which products without having to trawl social media pages or create hashtag campaigns to organize customer option. Are there other — perhaps more offline — ways to incentivize and collect consumer feedback?