Do you feel like you actually listen to what your customers are asking for? Almost every business leader says they do…but customers don’t believe them. Sure, if you ask your customers if they would like a better product or additional services at a better price and they give you feedback you are listening…but is this enough to change your business to be at a competitive advantage? Customers say no.
One phenomenon I find prevalent in most businesses is that they are happy to respond to questions that are asked of them or they are asking of their customers. This is only natural. These are usually the basic questions a customer asks every business. But what about the questions that aren’t being asked by the business but the customer is answering for you anyway? I know, seems strange…but follow along with me and this will make perfect sense in a minute.
Customer Feedback isn’t Always in Response to a Question
Most of us are duped into believing we have to ask our customers everything we want to know. And we actually believe they will respond and tell us the answers we need to know. Doesn’t happen. This hasn’t worked in decades…yet most businesses still pursue this as a viable channel for feedback and answers. It isn’t and it doesn’t (hasn’t) worked in a very long time. Think about this for a moment…
There are lots of issues with asking customers questions…here are just a few to consider. See if any of these ring a bell for you…experiences you have had with collecting valid customer data.
Asking Does (and can) work
Despite all the reasons why asking your customers for feedback doesn’t work, there are definitely ways to get answers from your customers that will work for you. However, this is a much deeper topic…one for another blog post…sorry. Stay tuned…it will be coming out in the next few weeks.
How to get great Feedback DIDN’T ASK FOR
Here’s the real answer to my initial question of “what feedback are you getting that you aren’t asking for with your questions” …your CUSTOMERS’ EXPERIENCE. Every day your business has tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of interactions with your customers. These interactions contain incredibly valuable information and data. And the best part is that it is free! And it is coming to you with honesty and integrity. This is information being thrown at you and your people every minute of every day.
What are you doing with it? Are you even capturing it? Are you even aware of it?
The Opportunity…
For most businesses, they aren’t doing any of the above…they are just getting it thrown at them but not capturing it. What a waste. Here is an opportunity for you to get some of the most valuable input from your customers that isn’t being captured, analyzed, discussed, or improved upon with any formal plan or actions. From my perspective (and hopefully yours), this is missing the gold sitting right in front of you. This is one of the best opportunities any leader can have with their company.
What exactly is this information I am talking about that you are getting thrown at you every day? Let me break it down into a few key areas for you to think about with regard to your own company.
These are just of few of the ways you can start collecting this incredibly valuable information WITHOUT ASKING A SINGLE QUESTION of your customers.
What to do next…
You can start collecting this information TODAY. It’s right in front of you if you choose to take advantage of it. Put a plan together that will allow you to accurately and consistently capture information from these many sources sitting in front of you right now. This is not only free information, it is probably the most valuable information you can have about your customer today. Free and valuable…is there any reason why you wouldn’t want to capture this information?
If you ever have any questions about this or any other aspect of what it’s like to be Customer Obsessed or how you can set up a process to capture this type of information, just ask and I’ll be happy to answer them. Or if you want to understand how to do this in more detail and how you could move your company to becoming more Customer Obsessed, I’d be happy to meet with you (complimentary of course) to discuss it further for your own particular situation. Hopefully you found this helpful…if so, I think it’s our responsibility as fellow business owners (and leaders) to share this with others we think could benefit from it…please help them out and share this with them.
I hope you decide to take advantage of the massive opportunity that awaits you and you make a strategic decision this year to become Customer Obsessed. It will put you on a completely differentiated path so you can be known as a company that is memorable, remarkable, incredibly helpful, someone who delivers an unbelievable customer experience, and someone who keeps their promises 100% of the time. That would be awesome!!
