Most companies have been totally focused on new prospects vs. looking at their past customers as new prospects. Right now customers are cutting through the advertising price wars and looking for a brand they can trust and still receive a fair price. There will always be those that want to buy the cheapest but that's not a characteristic of any companies desired customer. The thing to do right now is listen.
Your customer will tell you what they think about your products, services as well as customer service. You can't fix everything and that's not the reason to listen. You need this information to help steer your company in the right direction and the most important part about listening is that your customers feel they can trust a brand that's interested in their opinion.
Before we ever execute on a program for a client we try to fit the process of listening into the process. If the budget allows, it's always a good idea to go through the effort of asking your past customers what they think about you, your products, services, customer service, etc. You might as well get the credit for asking them because they're out their on the Internet telling everyone anyway.
When we build a customer community for our clients we always add a polling feature. Everyone hates surveys but we all love polls. We love to give our answer and see where we stand with everyone else. The thing we do is add that information to the customers profile so we can segment them further if needed. The wording of the question looks harmless but the meaning behind it may be driven from the CEO him/herself. We implemented a program and over a 3 year period had over 800,000 customers in the community. We would ask a polling question at 4:00 in the afternoon and by 9:00 am the next morning we would have 4,000 responses to our question. The customers love them and our clients love the quick feedback. We can even break the responses down per segment within the community to even get a clearer picture on the responses.
It's time if you're not already listening to your customers. You can build a community platform (just remember membership has to have it's privileges or no one will sign-up) and start polling them on what they like, what they don't like, etc. You can allow them to name your products, provide missing features for the next release of a product, tell you what food item is missing off of your menu. If the information alone isn't worth it the trust you build within your customer group will be.
We truely believe in the voice of the customer. If you need help adding this dynamic to your marketing don't hesitate to contact us at (816) 529-9000 or www.ontargetinteractive.com
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