Do you understand the basics to follow small business insights? The end state quality of what the customer received is what counts. And the better you know the customer and what drives his decisions; the better off you’ll be to winning his business. It is that simple.
The customer never buys what you think you sell.
-Peter Drucker
Check out our thoughts on customer focus.
Consider: “Saying no saves you time in the future. Saying yes costs you time in the future. No is like a time credit. You can spend that block of time in the future. Yes is like a time debt. You have to repay that commitment at some point. No is a decision. Yes is a responsibility.”
With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.
Most valuable customers
We categorize customers into four basic groups: prospects, customers, advocates, and former customers. The most important group is the advocates.
You should be paying special attention to them and those in the customer group that you believe could become advocates. So their insights are most important, by far.
What are customer insights?
Customer insights are associations between objects, actions, and communications that solve or help solve new customer problems.
The ultimate goal of all the points I list below is this: eliminate the fluff from your marketing strategy and focus only on the things that work.
Follow small business insights … customer reluctance
There are 3 key reasons customers are reluctant to give inputs to business: business makes it difficult and inconvenient; there is no mutual equitable exchange of value for the input, and employees act like they don’t care.
Your job is to eliminate this reluctance by fixing these issues as soon as you can.
Let me give you an example,
Would only the understanding of customer needs have led Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard to come up with the idea for the Tesla Roadster? Three key insights were the basis for their idea to start their electric car company
Battery technology doubled in performance roughly every 10 years and delivered that performance at a quarter of the cost
Car companies outsource much of their design and manufacturing to focus on sales, marketing and financing and thereby created a whole network of suppliers that new entrants could tap into
While an electric car may be an environmentally responsible choice it still needs to look good and offer a great driving experience in order to appeal to a broader audience
Ways to achieve smashing customer insights
Listen, observe, and draw conclusions
Not rocket science here. Pay attention to what customers are saying and what they are doing. You will then be in a good position to draw good insight conclusions.
Follow small business insights … customer collaboration
Instead of asking customers to watch and just passively consume, try getting them to actively participate, create and collaborate in activities related to your business. For example, ask them to define what would make shopping easier for them.
Share expertise freely
Relevant and helpful expertise is usually always welcome. This domain information helps build trust.
Broaden your thinking:
Understanding the world around you
- Customers/consumers – identifying the deeper needs that drive their behaviors
- Discontinuities – uncovering how combinations of trends lead to “discontinuities” or dramatic changes that can impact our industry
- Analogies – we apply existing knowledge from other industries to our business context and situation to generate new ideas.
- Industry mapping – visualization of the dimensions of competition from direct and indirect competitors uncover potential blind spots and alternative ways to compete
Follow small business insights … build relationships
Be more personable and social. Create and nurture customer relationships. Build friends who will share feedback more easily.
Show you listen
Listen to good ideas. Pick the best ones and act quickly to implement them. Show customers you are listening by publicizing the change with the simple recognition of the basis of change.
Two-way dialog on decisions
Ultimately focus customer conversation on helping them with purchase decisions. Listen and learn from what the customer has to say.
Connect more and different information
Connect the dots on all the bits and pieces of information you are gathering. The more connections you can make, the more insights you can find.
Related post: Complaints Are Sources of Remarkable Customer Retention Strategies
Integrate social media monitoring
More and more business is moving online. And customer communication as well. Pick some tools to help you monitor customer feedback (both intended and casual) on social media channels.
Communicate in new ways
Lots of new communication channels exist today, particularly online. Put more of these channels to work. Do some experimenting to find which ones work best for you.
The bottom line
Make collecting customer inputs and converting them to insights everyone’s responsibility. Get the employee staff together every few weeks to exchange information.
Here’s the thing, social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s really a new way of running a business. Many small businesses certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing and improved customer insights to rapidly grow their business.
