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Who is talking to your customers today? In order to understand what your market wants, you must talk to them and you must do it frequently. Who called them today and spoke with them on the telephone in person? Find out. Of your hundreds of employees, how many actually call, ask questions and discuss your customers’ needs directly with them?
Stress to your employees that a live voice on the telephone cannot be substituted. Tell your employees that sending emails back and forth with customers does not constitute “speaking with the customer”. Few people (your employees or your customers) pay attention to emails because they have learned they cannot immediately and easily react. Most generate more questions and answer very few. You need to be able to speak at ease with a customer and encourage their genuine complaints about your products or service.
Find out what the customer is thinking and what he needs. The discussion needs to be open-ended and inviting. You cannot achieve that with emailed surveys because they are not taken seriously. They are nearly always flawed in design and many of the answers provided are false or misleading because after answering a few questions and running into the limits of the questionnaire, the participants feel they are wasting their time and begin filling in spaces.
Set a goal to increase actual time on the telephone with your customers. When you find out how little your employees are talking to customers, establish a goal to increase this actual number by two times or three times as a beginning target. Change priorities in their job descriptions if currently skewed, and emphasize the need to understand your market and its needs.
How many customers have you done business with over the last ten to twenty years? Do you have a good database that can be used? Is anyone calling old customers on a regular basis? Even if they are reluctant to call old customers, encourage them to call to find out why they did not return for more business? What are their perceptions of your company and what you have to offer?
