Do You Consistently Know What Your Customers Really Want?
It’s a question we should always ask and yet we often find so difficult to answer. How an organization handles this question (and the answers) will determine its ultimate service success. If you consistently offer what your customers really want, you will be successful.
“When you are a customer, what makes you most satisfied?”
I kept track of what they said and I tabulated the results. I removed responses that had to do with specific products or services because I was looking for information that would be helpful across many industries and organizations.
Know more than I do (about your product or service).
Be easy to work with.
Help me get what I came for.
Smile.
Always give a good smile.
Acknowledge my presence.
Show me you care.
Be honest.
Offer alternatives if you don’t have what I want.
High quality and low prices.
Do what you say you’re going to do.
Keep me informed.
(The results are in ranked order from the most popular response.)
I don’t claim this survey has any scientific significance or statistical validity. (It’s not meant to).
But it is based on real answers from real people so I think it can be useful for many organizations as they work to improve their customer service.
People know what they want when they are customers, believe me. Based on how people responded, I think many of them feel they are not getting what they want.
This list of 12 customer wishes seems basic and intuitive. Yet I don’t believe most organizations are delivering these things to all their customers all the time.
If they were, this list would have been much shorter. People wouldn’t bother mentioning them if they were getting them on a regular basis.
The bottom line
Yet, what is really needed is basic curiosity – the desire to learn things rather than to know things. All too often, we strive to rattle off facts rather than promote understanding. With a little imagination and some thought, we can all do our little part to increase the overall knowledge of the world. True knowledge begins with wonder.
Need some help in building better customer service for your customers? Have you noticed the growing importance of customer service you provide, especially for your marketing? Creative ideas to help enhance your word of mouth marketing?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas for your service to customers.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on customer service from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Stunning Customer Service Lessons and Their Examples
