3 reasons your customers are the most important people to listen to
1. Times change – you've got to move with them
You’re probably not likely to need any explanation or substantiation here, but just in case you do I have two words for you. Blockbusters and Netflix.
2. Loyalty costs less than conquest
Perhaps a bit of a cliché, and difficult to quantify, but common sense says that listening to your customers, acting on their feedback, and keeping more of them as a result will save you in sales and marketing on conquest acquisitions.
3. It’s the only true measure of business performance
Sales are great, but if the customers are unhappy and not intending on coming back, or your product is fast becoming outdated compared to your competition, your business is really only heading in one direction. Making customer sentiment a top priority will give you access to long-term strategic health.Then there’s the power of reviews. Did you know, 98% of buyers read online reviews before making a purchase decision? Not only that. Customers spend 31% more when a business has positive reviews.
So what to do about it? If you can’t afford to commission research, there are still plenty of affordable options.
3 ways to find out more about your customers
1. Surveys – email link / pop up prompt
Most CRM systems will let you build surveys to find out whatever you might want to know about your customers. Keep them short, keep the questions open (not leading) and make sure you know what you’ll do with the results. Advertise them either by email link, or by pop-up for website visitors.
2. Track and tag what your customers are interested in
Track and tag Email link clicks - to landing pages, content, or better still lead magnets Once you’ve emailed your audience, make sure you’ve set up tracking to see what they do next. Direct them to pages that clearly identify topics they might be interested in, or better still develop downloads on particular topics which your leads have to supply their email address in order to access. Tag these groups so you know where they originated, and if you’re clever about this you can produce documents that are on different angles of your specialist subject so you can easily identify sub-sections of your audience.
3. Phone calls and personal emails
If you want to get a bit closer still to your customers, why not go old fashioned and pick up the phone? Or send a one-to-one email? This method is evidently no good if you want quantitative results, but some deep reflections and feedback on your product and service are more or less guaranteed!
