What matters most to your business?
It’s perhaps arguable but I reckon if you answered ‘customers’ you’re spot on. Let’s face it, while the business owner, the business’ people and the business’ products and/or services are vital, without customers there is no business.
So how much do you really know about your customers? How long has it been since you gained feedback from your customers? Conducting either casual or formal surveying of your customers is a great way to find out more about them and their needs, and can highlight ways that you can improve your business.
Tom Bishop has further insight on the importance of staying close to your customers.
What matters most to your customers?
If you want to know how to increase your business, just ask your customers. Asking for customer feedback is one of the most important elements of doing business. Developing lasting customer relationships and customer loyalty requires an understanding of their needs and the reasons behind their buying decisions.
Survey your customers and ask them what they expect from you, what features of your product or service they most enjoy and what they think about your customer service. It’s also important to ask your customers for suggestions to improve your business. Your customers could be noticing areas that need improvement that you may be missing.
Listen to your customers, discover their pain points, and bring innovative solutions to market to address their issues and challenges. Paying attention to what your customers are saying can give you better insights to what matters most to them and gives you multiple ways to engage with them and build stronger relationships.
- Customer surveys help your organization:
- Discover new product and service ideas
- Learn what keeps your customers loyal
- Understand customer needs and challenges
- Gain insight into customer service care
- Keep a competitive edge with your market
- Realize areas for improvement and ways to fix them
Gather demographic information within your customer survey to help segment your data during the analysis. You can easily collect gender, age, and geographic location. It’s important to realize the demographic that uses your product or service in order to accommodate their needs. For example, if you manufactured boots, it would be vital to know that your most loyal customers are women ages 35-45, who live in the north region of New England. This way you could focus you marketing efforts for women in that age range and develop store locations in the region that your customer base lives. This could save your company money and time by focusing your efforts on your target customer.
Once you’ve segmented your list, you can stay relevant with your customers via ongoing communications that involve them with your brand. When you know customers more intimately, you can craft your messages around products and services throughout the life cycle that address their needs and interests and maximize the lifetime value of each customer. For instance, if a blizzard comes through New England, the boot manufacturer can send emails relevant to the blizzard. Possible subject lines include: “Brrr…Our Boots Keep You Warm in Any Amount of Snow” or “Feet Wet? We Guarantee that Our Boots Will Keep You Dry!”
Targeted, highly-relevant, timely messages will outperform every time. Use this strategy and get superior response to your efforts.
By Tom Bishop on June 1, 2011
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