Customer Speak - Part 2

Excerpt form the book - Culturrific!

Customer Speak is a process of letting your customers speak to you about what they want. You should have several focus group sessions each year to find out what your customers are saying. Ask them what they wish you did differently and what they could care less if you did. Perhaps Coca-Cola would have not introduced the new Coke if they were listening to their customers. Their customers certainly spoke when it was introduced!

There is a great myth out there that you have to spend thousands of dollars and hire slick, professional data gatherers and researchers like the ones with the clipboards in the mall. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s so easy to hold your own Customer Speak sessions in all of your locations nationwide (even globally). Place a sign at the front entrance of your business that says:

“How would like you like to get 10% off today?”

Whenever you get takers, have them complete your 10-minute personal interview with one of your front line employees. There are two wins here. First, you are gathering information that will be invaluable to you in the future as you decide what services you should and should not offer. Second, you are rewarding top performers by asking them to participate in the research. Typically, companies will hire temps to do the surveys. What kind of message does that send to the customer? Do you really care what they have to say? Use the best to get the information. It will make them feel part of the total business and not just a pair of hands and feet.

This survey only costs you 10% off their purchase - which is probably something you have seventeen coupons and marketing gimmicks already available that do the same thing. For your business, you may use a different angle, but we have found that when you say % off a purchase, it means a lot more to the guest and you get a lot more takers than a free 2-liter bottle of New Coke.

Once you have the information, you know what to do with it. But you will need to make sure that what you heard is what they meant. Be careful not to read into what your customers are saying or put things into their mouths. Keep yourself separated from their answers. It’s very natural to impose our own opinions over the ones from the customer. After all we are customers to, right? Not of your own company you’re not. Do you buy from your company because of the way you are treated or because you get a discount? Think about it.

If you wait until you get the data back from your customers on your service, you will be reactive instead of proactive. Therefore, you will have to take a lead role in deciding and defining service from the Everything Speaks philosophy.