Millions of dollars are spent each year to research shoppers' opinions and to get their input for the development of new products. Nestlé of Vevey, Switzerland was particularly struggling to find new products and to stay in touch with U.S. consumers. Nestlé wanted to supplement information received from consumers during focus groups, where people are paid for their opinions, but can often be influenced by others in the group. They looked at caller logs to their 800 number and found that only 20% of these calls represented complaints. The rest of the calls were mainly expressing opinions about Nestlé products. Nestlé trained their managers to return some of the 880,000 calls they receive each year and to talk directly with users of their products about their opinions and suggestions. As a result of these calls, they have made some changes to product packaging and colors and these changes have delivered a jump in sales.

Proctor and Gamble has also implemented a similar program and trains their call center representatives to ask additional marketing questions of callers to their toll-free number. These responses are funneled back to decision makers in real time to incorporate suggestions and allow changes.