DO YOU REALLY KNOW?
Do
you know what kind of experience your customers want to have when they
buy from you? I mean, do you know for a fact? Have you asked them?
If you want to become customer driven, you must put your customers at the
centre of your world, learn as much about them as you can, and then use that
information to change the way you run your business. The objective is to operate
a business that works well for your customers. If you are fast, easy to do
business with and reliable, people will want to buy from you. If your business
makes your customers successful, they will want to come back for more.
The first step is to understand what kind of experience your customers are
expecting to have when they do business with you. You could probably tell me
right now. After all, you have been in business for many years and have dealt
with thousands of customers. After a while, you get a feel for what customers
want. But in this world full of demanding customers, it is not enough to believe
you know what your customers want. You must find out for sure. Otherwise you
will be running your business on a hunch and that is very risky.
Here is a 5-step process that will help you find out for sure.
Step 1: Meet with some or all of your staff and get them to brainstorm what
they think customers want to experience when buying from you. Don’t be afraid
to throw your ideas into the pot.
Step 2: Ask two or three people - you could be one of them if you wish -
to go through the material from the brainstorming and produce a list of words
or phrases where each one describes one aspect of the experience your customers
want to have when doing business with you. Beside each word or phrase put a
four point rating scale where 1 = not important at all; 2 = not very important;
3 = important; and 4 = very important.
Step 3: Send the list to a representative sample of your customers and ask
them to rate each item on the list. An even better idea would be to have reps
sit down with customers and go through the list with them.
Step 4: Use the results to put together a second list which ranks, in order
of decreasing importance, the things your customers are looking for. You could
do this for all customers or you could have separate lists for various customer
segments. Do whatever will give you the most useful information.
Step 5: Hold meetings with staff, show them this second list, and discuss
what your customers say about the kind of experience they want to have when
dealing with your company. Ask staff what they think the company is doing well,
what they think the company is doing poorly and what is not being done at all.
Use this information to drive improvement activity. Make sure the list drives
people’s behaviour going forward.
To find out how satisfied your customers are, send out the second-generation
list and ask them to rate your performance on a four point scale where 1 =
very dissatisfied; 2 = dissatisfied; 3 = satisfied and 4 = very satisfied.
Remember, only those customers who are very satisfied are likely to stay loyal.
Even satisfied customers defect.
If you would like to understand what your customers value (as opposed to
what they want) hold face to face meetings with individual customers or small
focus groups. Give each person a sum of play money that is equal to the price
of one of your products or services. Ask them how much they would be prepared
to pay for just the bare product or service and get them to put that amount
of play money on the table. Then go through the list of items on your second-generation
list and ask them how much they would be prepared to pay for each item.
This all takes time, of course, and probably a little bit of money too. But
it is an essential part of running your business. Just as you spend time and
money managing your stock, your finances, your staff and your plant and equipment,
you must invest in managing your customers. If you don’t, you might lose them.
Then where would you be?
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