The key to a more successful business…

It’s easy to focus only on the day-to-day running of your business but it will pay off tenfold to think about the longer-term and more strategic planning when it comes to hearing what your customers have to say.

Nowadays, it’s so simple to have a two-way dialogue or exchange of ideas with your customers. It’s imperative to listen and take into account what changes your organization should make from this feedback… then follow through!

Remember, your customers are the life force of your organization and having a secure understanding of their mindset and acquiring feedback into your business is something many companies don’t plan for when it comes to their customer relationship management, strategy or business plan.

Don’t throw in the towel on this notion of constant and consistent feedback as customer responses often leads to progress throughout all departments.

Just a few reasons there should be some attention to feedback:

• Customer Retention: It is always important to understand why your company may be losing customers.  Your client’s perception is vital to the organization’s success.  With this knowledge you can understand why you may have lost customers in the past and learn what has been successful and what hasn’t.
• Identification: With their feedback, you’ll learn who your target audience is and what method of communication is most effective.  When reaching out to obtain feedback make sure your questions are in alignment with your organizational goals.  This will help you not only learn your customer’s needs and wants but identify your competition as well.
• Product Improvement: Whether you are researching why a product or service hasn’t been popular or you are planning to launch a new product or service, customer feedback will help you in all areas.  Customer feedback can help you from a simple change to a product or service, to learning that they are looking for something that doesn’t exist yet and that can be in your future concepts.
• Methods: Always hear what your customers have to say…try gathering feedback through surveys, focus groups, social media, email and web forums, customer service or your own observations. Check in with your communication channels daily, and pay close attention to customer developments in order to keep up with where and how customers want to engage.

Nurturing relationships with your customers is a crucial part of growing a successful business.  In this age of automation and innovation, caring for your customers has never been more important.

You’ll be gaining insight into your clients and competitors at the same time, you’ll discover new methods for customer retention and the best practices for reaching out to potential patrons.

Use your blog, social media channels and customer service team to get feedback and create more significant relationships with clients.

Keep in mind your success in aligning employee and company goals along with customer satisfaction depends on an open and ongoing dialogue.

Take your customer’s feedback seriously and act upon reasonable requests.  Make sure it’s clear to all employees as well as customers that their feedback is important and that your business truly values them as a member.

How often do you listen to customer feedback?

[themecolor]Dave Baney is the founder and CEO of 55 Questions, LLC.  We work with successful top executives with a driving ambition to crush their competition. We help CEOs and Entrepreneurs improve alignment, communication and accountability throughout their organization.[/themecolor]  http://www.55questions.com

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