I am your customer. Listen to me!

Hi, I'm your customer.  I am the key to the success of your young company but for some reason, I have not heard from you lately.  I have a problem that is keeping me awake at night and you may be able to solve that problem but you don't know it and neither do I.  So, why won't you talk to me?

Maybe because dealing with me can be tough. I don’t care about your problems and my expectations can seem unreasonable. I will probably use your product in ways you did not intend nor for which you designed.  On the other hand, I may love your product or service leaving you to wonder why I haven't bought it yet.  I change my mind a lot and I don't always have money.  But none of this matters to me.  Here's the deal... your biggest problem from my perspective is that you think you know what the problem is and you believe your solution is best.  Why else would you have borrowed money, spent the savings, given up equity and cashed in the 401k?  With all that is at stake, doesn’t it make sense to ask me what I think?  Here are 5 basic things I really wish you would think about.  For me.  For you.

The best market research you can do is talk to me. Your solution may be great but the way you are selling it won’t work. A graphic designer came up with a great way to advertise local businesses. She set about trying to sell each business on the virtues of her idea with some success but it was tough slogging it out one sale at a time. By getting to know her customers needs better, she determined that there were existing advertising channels her customers were accustomed to dealing with. She was able to offer those channels a new tool and they began to do her sales for her.

It may be that some little insignificant feature you threw in turns out to be the selling point that I am  most interested in.  My wife and I were shopping for cars and we found one that I liked. It had the right engine, suspension, and performance specifications. It handled well and was good on gas. The first thing my wife wanted to know was has many cup holders there were.

You may find out that even though I want your product, I am not the one who can buy it.  A startup developed an energy efficient technology for new homes. The end user is obviously the home buyer who wants cheaper energy bills but the buying decision on new home construction lies with the developer...who has no incentive to spend more money on energy efficient technology.

You, the CEO, cannot outsource this activity. When you are a company of one, there is no one to delegate. If anyone is going to talk to me, it is going to be you.  Soon though, you will hire marketing and sales people whose job it is to deal with me.  You may hire market research firms who specialize in customer research and will sell you their research reports. Research firms do great work and you should work them into the strategy if you feel they provide value. But, remember YOU are the chief decision maker. Talking directly to me does two important things for you. First, you get to hear firsthand how I am using your product and how it makes my life better.  Second, it tells me that the person at the top cares and is accessible.

Technology is making customer interaction easier. The emergence of social networking tools is providing customer feedback in ways that never existed. Some of those ways are outside your control as in the case of Angie’s List.  There will be more. Believe me, if I love or if I hate your product, I WILL talk about it.  You can no longer afford to put off adopting certain elements of social networking into your customer relationship strategy.

Talk to me at least once a week. Technology changes things. The economy changes things. The next generation changes things. Change brings opportunity. Make it a habit to talk to me on a regular basis. Schedule it.  Make Friday “customer day”.  Staying in touch with me will help you sniff out subtle changes in the way I buy your stuff before they show up in your sales trends.  I have a lot of great ideas for new products or services. You will create loyalty that you cannot buy any other way.

Talk less, listen more. I hate it when someone else tries to tell me what I want or think or feel. If you are going to take my time, listen to what I am telling you, without being defensive and without trying to sell me your opinion. I will appreciate it and I will be more likely to give you my business.

I know you have your hands full getting your next product developed, raising capital and updating your business plan...and don't take it personally... I don't care.  I have a problem.  You have a solution.  I would buy it if it cost a little less or I could get it at a particular store, and I am definitely going to need more cup holders.

Give me a call.  I'll tell you all about it.

Comments

[William Milam]

Excellent post. I know that as an engineer, we have a tendency to keep talking about the virtues of our product or service and never give the customer a chance to say "no". We figure that if we keep going through the feature set, they will "logically" make the correct buy decision. Also, on many technical specialities such as MPEG decoders, embedded power supplies, etc, we know more about the topic than the customer. We want to "educate" the customer instead of listening to their concerns.

Please keep reminding us.