Listening to customers
Let’s start with a basic but key criterion. They have to be comfortable spending time with and listening to consumers. A fundamental starting point for any great marketer is: get out of your office and spend time in the places and spaces where your consumers experience the product, no matter how senior or ‘important’ you consider yourself.
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- Visit the places where your customers experience your products/services
Listen to the feedback, reviews and experiences on the products/services from a diverse group of customers. Avoid third parties as much as possible while you are in contact with the customers. Try to be as close as possible while your customers are using the product. - Observe the usage –why-where-when-how
Keep your eyes wide open when your customers using the product. You may come across some simple ideas to improve your product that have a great impact and design new products. Note each and every aspect such as why your customers are using your product (in some cases the usage may not reflect the actual purpose of the product), where they are using the product often, when they are using i.e. at what time, location etc, and finally how they are using. Always look for the strange patterns in the customer usage or experience. - Ask questions and listen to answers from the horse’s mouth
Try to listen unbiased and objectively what the customers meant while they give the feedback rather than just what you heard or perceived. Avoid structured customer feedback environments as much as possible as this may influence and hamper the quality of the opinions of the customers. - Spend time with the customers
Listening and understanding a customer is not a one time or a yearly programme. It is a constant and continuous process. Often the executives decrease the time spent on to listening to customers as they grew in their position and influence the business decisions. - Act on the feedback
Don’t make listening to customers a namesake activity. Not valuing the information gained from the customers is a symptom of change aversion for the improvement. Make sure that the result of the action taken based on the feedback serve the purpose.
One out of the three golden Dell rules emphasis on customer feedback- Always listen to the customer.
Dell Computer was the first company to build and operate itself around the customer feedback. “Our attitude is diametrically opposed to the engineering-driven thinking of ‘Let’s invent something and then go push it onto customers who might be willing to buy it.’ Instead, I founded the company with the intention of creating products and services based on a keen sense of the customer’s input and the customer’s needs. I spend about 40% of my time with customers”, says Michael Dell