It’s disturbing when a retailer reduces store count or closes stores. More disturbing are the people who will be out of work because of it. My daughter and I went shopping this past Saturday, and Forever 21 was on the list of places she wanted to visit. What we found was a store that was in total disarray, virtually no floor staff to help and when we found someone, they were unable to help us. Retailers profess the customer experience is the only differentiator, the battlefront, the only way to succeed in this experiential economy. Some do it very well and thrive and some close 44 stores. As someone who has spent 28 years helping customer-facing brands understand their customers, I looked into their into customer feedback process, which if done right, provides an early warning signal of the brand's health. What I found during my review of their online feedback survey process, was a short poorly built survey that lacked depth and was in no way producing insights that were “actionable”. Data is what drives your business and your customers are the greatest source of actionable data but if you ask non-actionable questions you will get non-actionable insights and your brand will suffer.