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4. WHAT Voice of the Customer Research Can Help You Know.
Before launching a customer-focusing project, we recommend developing consensus within your team on what your issues are, how to strengthen your market position, and what’s needed to create a more positive selling and retaining environment for customers.
We mentioned one way to build consensus in the reference section on positioning analysis. In another we work with your team to establish a base line and then imagine a desired state and what it will take to get there—what people, processes, and technology need to be in place. Our Align for Success Factor tool, based on nearly 100 elements we’ve seen affect success in decades of sales and marketing, stimulates the discussion and quantifies the results. It provides a reality check on external and internal categories to focus upon.
Voice of the Customer research then can help you validate your self-diagnosis among your top priority customers. Here’s part of what you may want to know:
- What they like about your company and its products/services?
- What drew them to you in the first place? What appealed to them?
- What they used to justify going with you? How hard was it?
- How it has worked out for them? Did they get what they came for?
- Would they do it again? What is their experience?
- What makes them stay? Do they have a choice?
- What would they add if they were in charge of your product/service?
- What would they take away?
- What they think of your current offering? How would they bundle or unbundle it?
- What do they put up with or work around?
- Do they look to your company for leadership or innovation?
- What do they think about your prospects for the future? Where you should be going?
- How do they react to different options you are considering?
- What resistance will you meet? How hard it will be for them to act?
- How relevant or important is what you do for them in performing their work?
- What is the most valuable thing about your relationship to them?
- Is there anything you should be doing to make their life easier?
- How can you improve their experience with you?
- What do they tell others about you? Do they recommend or refer you?
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