Seeking Direct Customer Feedback
As businesses have made our way onto social networks we have several new ways of listening to our customers, tracking what they’re saying about us, and engaging them in conversation. Much has been written about the success that companies like Dell have had engaging customers through Twitter and other platforms, and we’ll probably write more on that subject ourselves, but today, we wanted to write about the importance of time-tested direct customer feedback. No matter how many platforms we have, nothing replaces face-to-face engagement.
This is the simple art of looking a customer in the eye and asking “How can I serve you better?” Simple though it may seem, many businesses have forgotten this art. Sure, they have in-store feedback survey’s, Facebook fan pages where they can ask for feedback, and even more complex methodologies like focus groups and third-party market research. All of these vehicles serve a purpose and can net invaluable results, but none of them can replace the face-to-face interactions that result in really knowing your customer.
Here are two steps for not only seeking direct customer input, but tracking and utilizing that data:
Build Feedback Into the System – In a previous post, we talked about giving your customers a chance to tell you what they want. Today’s topic calls for more than just giving them an opportunity, this is about actually asking them leading questions that can inform your current and future business decisions. Brief your employees on the type of data you want to collect, and then train them to ask leading questions in everyday interactions.
For example, every time we stand at the supermarket checkout making small-talk with the employee, there is a missed opportunity for them to ask us for substantial feedback. Instead of just asking, “did you find everything” (which we are rarely asked), why not tailor the questions to the specific purpose. If the person at the checkout stand see’s us buying organic bananas, but not organic tomato. Why not ask the simple question: “If we stocked organic tomato, would you buy them?” Is this not valuable feedback? This could create a valuable picture not only of individual customers, but of your entire customer base if you consistently ask these type of questions.
Establish a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System – In order to make use of the feedback you are gathering, you must institute a CRM system that tracks your customer’s input over time and allows you to not only better interact with the individuals, but create a picture of your overall customer base. These day’s CRM software doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated, but it needs to be comprehensive, and there are a lot of inexpensive solutions that we’ve helped clients institute with great success. Find what works for you, and start using it religiously.
Knowing who your customers are, what their needs and wants are gives you a leg up on serving them in the short term, and planning for the long term.
Avoid These Words
We were just reading the Entrepreneur.com article about Words Your Should Avoid in Marketing Copy which has some very solid advice to not use the following words in your marking copy: Free, Guarantee, Lowest Price, Risk-free or No Risk, Up To or At Least.
After reading that list, if you’re thinking, “how am I going to avoid those words” then it is probably time to re-evaluate your marketing strategy. By no means should you never ever use these terms, but because they have been so overused they have lost their meaning, and thus their desired affect, for consumers, and therefore you should be very careful before using them in your marketing copy. There are some businesses that are notorious for saturating the marketplace with these terms; think car dealerships, mattress warehouses, and any company buying ad-time after 3am on local television. Because of this, consumers have been trained to associate certain terms with certain businesses, and by overusing these terms, you can unintentionally associate yourself as well.
What should you do instead? Start by writing marketing copy that speaks to your target audience, and establishes your brand as one that connects with the values of your potential customers. Create positive associations and deliver against them. Be honest and forthright in your marketing. Then, when you do want to slip in a free giveaway, or a genuine guarantee, your consumers will believe you and it will have the desired affect on sales. In other words, be strategic, use these trigger words sparingly (if at all) and instead focus at all times on connecting with your customer.
Two Leadership Mistakes To Avoid.
We are currently working on a naming project (sorry, confidentiality won’t let us disclose more than that) and when doing some random Googling, we ran across this very un-timely, but insightful article from Entrepreneur.com on the “8 Mistakes to Avoid When Naming Your Business (from April 2005).”
However old the article, we found the advice solid enough to inform our current naming process, and then got to thinking about how two of the tips , and not just for naming a business/product/program, but in fact for most strategic decisions that a leader makes. So, our take on the 2 leadership mistakes to AVOID:
- Decision By Committee – First of all, none of us are an island, and certainly we all have teams, boards, and other groups who should be consulted on important decisions. In fact, if structured correctly, these allies can provide valuable feedback before making a decision. The key is to structure their feedback, have a clear process, and don’t let group-think take over. As a leader, you need to take this feedback very seriously, consider input from all sides, and let your structure guide you to utilizing this information to make a better decision. But at the end of the day, your role is to make sure this input is improving the decision making process and not making it more confusing, or watering it down in any way.
- Making the Wrong Decision, and Refusing to Change - It’s generally human nature to want to stick by your decisions, no matter what. Fight this urge, without giving into the temptation to change your mind at the first sign of danger; but once it is clear that your plan has failed and that it is causing more problems than it is solving, don’t be afraid to change your mind. Once you decide to take a new course, go back and analyze the original decision with a mind to avoiding the wrong turns you took last time.
Demonstrate Your Value
As a consulting firm that works for a lot of non-profits and small businesses, we are often forced to make value a central part of our pitch, demonstrating that our clients will make money by hiring us. That in the short or long term, the money they invest in our consulting fees will pay dividends for their business.
This value-added approach has become even more crucial in the last year, when even our largest (and most financially secure) clients have been tightening their belts and looking for us to justify our fees in ROI terms. So, here are two ways we’ve found effective in demonstrating value:
- Use Case Studies To Demonstrate ROI: Don’t just demonstrate you’re expertise on executing the project, be concrete about the ways that you have helped other organizations gain value by purchasing your product and/or services.
- Build ROI Into The Project: We often build measurable ROI into our pitches, by showing ways that our expertise will bring increase revenue (or decrease expense, or both) that will net the client more than our consulting fees. On a recent pitch, we calculated how our team could streamline operations (reduce expenses) and bring in more customers (increase revenue) and how this bottom line was greater than our consulting fees.
The more we are able to do this in very concrete terms, the more our current and prospective clients are actually willing to up-sell themselves on additional services, because they see the value we bring to their organization.
How are you demonstrating your value to your current and prospective clients?
Update: We just found this post from Seth Goodin titled “Pay for things” where Seth offers this simple equation: if paying for something would provide greater return than doing the work yourself, paying for it is a no brainier.
Serving Customers. Creating Loyalty.
We just stumbled on this old Chris Brogan post where he waxes on about Ideas for Hotels and Hospitality, which got us thinking about ways in which we, and our clients, could better serve their customers and create lasting loyalty.
- Give them opportunities to tell you what they want.
It is amazing how much people will talk if you simply ask them “what do you want?… and what don’t you want?” Use every opportunity (website sign-ups, personal interactions, behavioral data) to know what your customers do and don’t want. Store this information, and use it to make their experience hassle free in the future.
Think of requests you get regularly by existing customers, and start making it a habit of asking these questions of new customers—it will show that you know your market, and it will allow you to begin meeting their needs immediately (remember, most of us often don’t know what we need until we need it, so anticipate that.)
- Make the experience customizable.
Consumers are getting very used to having the things they want, they way they want them, and when they want them. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all, mass-produced solutions. And many more businesses than just Wall Mart are guilty of this approach to business, service organizations (hotels, in Chris’s example) consistently seem to think that they can provide a general experience to everyone who walks through their revolving door. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
A long-time maitre’d at one of our favorite restaurants is fond of saying that as a diner, your are partially responsible for the type of service you get (now, this restaurant is known for it’s excellent service, so there is a baseline that they’ve already achieved). Instead, he invites diners to tell him what type of experience they are looking for (business, family, romance, etc) and he pays very close attention to the verbal and non-verbal signals. For his frequent diners, he’s figured out what they want, and under what circumstances, and he no longer has to ask. But he’ll customize the experience for you, because even though they provide a high level of service across the board, they understand that it should still fit the person and the occasion.
- Give them what they want!…consistently, and without having to be reminded.
A customer should only have to tell you once they like things done in a certain way, information presented in a particular format, or even, in Chris’s example, they prefer a certain type of bath products in their hotel room. Be sure you’re collecting this data, and sharing it across your organization—there is nothing more annoying than having to repeat a request to multiple members of the same firm.
The maitre’d referenced above is only truly effective because he passes requests onto the waitstaff, bussers, sommelier and everyone else who may stop by the table. He acts as the central customer information database for this restaurant, making sure that everyone knows exactly how certain patrons want to be treated.
What is your customer engagement and loyalty strategy?
Great Concept. Poor Execution.
While reading a website earlier today, an Orbitz ad—in the form of a 3-hole mini-golf-style game—broke through our pop-up blocker and offered a great excuse for distraction. (We couldn’t post link because the “tell a friend” button didn’t work, or because, perhaps, our ad blocker actually prevented that portion)
It was a simple little game, that took all of 2 minutes to “complete” before redirecting me to Orbitz hotel site, but it was fun, and distracting enough that we played a second “round.” Great! Marketing win for Orbitz, right? After all, they got at least four minutes of brand exposure. Yes, a win for Orbitz if their goal was just to raise the awareness of their brand—which has pretty high awareness anyway.
But on closer examination—which we only undertook when this transitioned from a fun distraction to a blog post about marketing—it isn’t clear at all that this was a well-executed campaign for Orbitz. Here is why:
- The campaign seemed to link to both the “OrbitzTLC” program and the Orbitz Hotels program (the shape of each mini-golf hole was the shape of the Orbitz Hotel logo, which looks marginally like a hotel)
- The game may have been intended to raise awareness of the Hotel offerings in particular (most people still associate Orbitz with flights, not hotels)
- Neither OrbitzTLC nor Orbitz Hotels have anything to do with golf.
Orbitz could have made a much larger impression, and probably generated more direct sales, by tying their mini-golf interactive game into actual golf vacations. Here are three things they could have done to maximize this advertisement:
- Redirect to a page that features special rates on golf destination travel? Myrtle Beach anyone?
- Create a real incentive to forward it to your friends. What about a way to challenge them in order to accrue points that enter one into a chance to win a trip to Myrtle Beach?
- Redirect those challenges onto a social network (for instance, a Facebook App) so that it could truly be passed around and seen by many more, therefore maximizing the ROI on your development costs and ad buy.
It seems that Orbitz was pretty short-sighted with this one.
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