Crazy Customers
Your customers are crazy. They will provide you---for FREE---a continuous deluge of advice on …. everything. Everything you need to do to make your customers more engaged, more committed, more likely to purchase your product. Want to know your Web site’s pain points? Just ask. How effective is your frontline phone team? Just ask. What would make your product a market leader? Just ask. Or are you too scared of the answers? You might have to do something, change something, invest in something. What percentage of your staff is dedicated to gathering and handling all this free market research? How many levels must a customer with a complaint claw through before reaching an empowered employee? How many “Press 3” phone tree labyrinths before a helpful, authoritative voice answers? You can tell a lot about a company and its viability by its customer disservice approach. But back to the free market research … your customers will also prioritize your response. Just listen. They’ll define the problem, describe a solution and prioritize the need. It’s up to you to immediately act on the Must Do’s, address the To Do’s before they fester, and regularly toss in a Delighter to do just that. Google Wave launched to a select group, who immediately tore it apart and responded with a list of improvements. Sometimes those improvements are termed failings, shortcomings, obvious missteps. Bypass the sticks-n-stones language and appreciate the insights. The Google folks now have a prioritized action list from an expert group of engaged customers. Go ahead, I dare you. Proactively ask your customers for their advice. It’s free … crazy as that might seem.
