As an entrepreneur or businessman, you know that the customer is King and if you don’t listen to your customer, you will not be able to run your business effectively and profitably. This was before COVID-19 and it will remain post-COVID era.
Experts are claiming that the buying behaviour of Customer may change, but no one is sure about this and everyone is waiting and watching. But at the same time, customer behaviour experts are observing very carefully how customers are going to behave post-COVID-19.
So, it is extremely important to know the pulse of the customer and the right way is to take feedback at regular intervals about your product and services on whether they are going to change?
The following 7 things will help you understand how to listen to your customer.
1. Have your own Robust Primary Research
Old Customers
All the customers which you have served in the past are most likely to come back and use your product/services again. So, our first focus should be on retaining them. You must ask them about how their purchase behaviour is going to change. After completion of the survey, the result will help us in understanding them. Plan your corporate strategy in the direction in which the customer is thinking.
Target new customers
Do a survey of new customer segments that you may not have served or targeted in the past. By doing so you would be able to understand if the new customer segment can become your future customer or not. When you listen to your customer and when you find some positive insights, then start preparing campaigns and start targeting them frequently. If you find some segments are negative about purchasing our product/services, then keep on surveying them as the sentiments may change very soon.
Qaizenx Market Research is one of such tools which will help you with primary research
2. Take frequent Customer Feedback Survey
Use the CAIA Model- Capture, Analyze, Insights, and Act.
You do not want to lose even a single customer, so it is extremely important to have a robust and actionable feedback mechanism.
Capture your customer feedback by asking them about their experience with your product/service. Take simple feedback each time customer uses your product or service (e.g. rating question say 5 stars like that of UBER, Google takes for Apps in App-store, or use Net Promoter scores (NPS) to increase the customer loyalty.
Analyze the survey results in deep to understand the customer happiness index
Insights on customer feedback will help you understand in which parameters you have to work to increase customer satisfaction.
Act on the insights by forming a strategy around customer retention before engaging the customer in discussions (e.g. surprise gift, some free coupon, offer something free, and so on). Research shows that one customer with a bad experience will go and tell 20 customers not to buy your product or service, so retaining these unhappy customers are extremely important for the growth of your company.
Furthermore, there are some Do’s and Don’ts to follow when you take feedback from customers.
Qaizenx is one of the platforms which will help you in closing this feedback loop of CAIA Model (Capture, Analyze, Insights and Act).
3. Learn from the Secondary Research
Companies like McKinsey and BCG does a lot of research. Search for the reports available this will help a lot in streamlining your corporate strategy
Read some articles like this on McKinsey,
4. Social Media Listening
According to research by SproutSocial, 47% of unsatisfied customers will voice it on social media, and they are trustworthy and sincere complaints. You must listen to your customer on social media to connect with dissatisfied customers and make them happy.
Along with the unhappy customer, you can find the trend of customer behaviour by adopting various social media analytics. HootSuite is one such tool, you can use to find your social media trend.
5. Analyze and Learn from your Competitors
Innovation will be introduced in all business verticals. A business owner needs to keep an eye on how their competitors are changing and it is extremely important to learn from them. This innovation may change the dynamics of doing business and you do not want to be left behind.
List down at least 5 close competitors to your business. Prepare a weekly report to check out what new they are doing and see which of them can be used by your company.
6. Keep the Communication Channel Going
Inform your customer at regular intervals that you are alive?
Businesses over the continents are going to change. The customer needs to be updated on the change happening in your company. Use all possible communication channels (e.g. Email, TV, Radio, Social Media, and so on) to communicate.
7. Use Technology to Increase Overall Efficiency of your Process
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” ― Charles Darwin
Technology is the need of the hour it does not matter if you like it or not. Use technology products to your benefit. Some of the things which you need to do are listed below,
- Digitize your customer feedback mechanism (paper-pencil feedback is ancient now) to get the pulse of the customer.
- Analyze the Social Media, blogs forums and understand what customer is talking about and you would be able to predict customer behaviour.
- Give a product demo to the customer whenever asked.
By listening to your customer you will know what they want, and then you can use your time and resource on very specific improvements which will improve customer experience and it will improve your customer retention and loyalty.
Listen to your customer with QaizenX Customer Experience Software.
