Over the past 30 years, both the governmental and private sectors have made use of a feedback mechanism, which helps improve the quality of environments: post-occupancy evaluation (POE) or a similar systematic process, which gauge the satisfaction with, and importance of, the designed and built environment. How does this process work, what kind of input does it require? What value, if any, does it add to the core business of an organisation? When should it be carried out, and how should the resulting data be used in enhancing the quality of existing and future buildings? Who should commission POEs and who should be in charge of developing databases, which can be used for benchmarking and the development of building performance criteria for future projects? What is the cost of these POEs in relationship to the benefits to be derived? All of these questions are addressed in this paper. [Taken from journal headnote].