Becoming More Customer-focused
Today, and increasingly in the new economy, customers are asserting their purchasing power in many industries. No longer so loyal or so easy to manipulate, they have become more fickle, more mobile and more educated. The spread of shopping alternatives via the Internet and other media will increase this tendency tremendously. Most businesses will need to pay much more attention to exactly who their customers are and how best to satisfy them. Growing your business will involve getting to know your customers as much as possible.
Collect customer feedback
When you developed your first business plan, you spent time researching your target market. You may have explored how large that market was and where your potential sales would come from. You may also have segmented the market into different geographic and psychographic profiles.
But having been in business for a while, you already have a customer base. Examining this allows you to compare who you think you are targeting with who is actually buying. The results can help you see if re-targeting your efforts is needed.
Many different methods exist for collecting information about your customers. Some are easy for collecting information about your customers. Some are easy for the small business owner to do alone. Some require researcher expertise to obtain reliable results. Others need to be on-going methods of data collection.
What sort of information should you collect? That depends on what questions you need to answer. For example, here are some key things to track about customer satisfaction:
- How satisfied are you with our product/service?
- How satisfied are you with our competitor’s product/service?
- How would you assess our speed of service, friendliness of staff and consistency of service?
- What were your expectations? Did we meet those expectations?
- How likely are you to return to us as a customer?
- Would you recommend our product/service to a friend?