Listen to Your Customer....What if they don't know what they want?

“Listen to your customer. Change your product to meet the customers’ needs or change your market.” You’ve heard this, I’m sure. But how?

Kathleen Dahlberg (CEO of 2Unify) says that “entrepreneurs spend too much time creating their product and not enough time selling it. They must change the product to meet the demands and needs of the customer. If the customer doesn’t like it, it doesn’t matter what you think of it. They won’t buy it.”

Great, but what if the customer doesn’t know what s/he wants? How do you get the right balance of what they want and what makes sense from a profit perspective? How do you know what they will want in the future? ”This is tough stuff” says John Fox (President of Venture Marketing and author of The Marketing Playbook).

Kent Nelson (former CEO of HRH Illinois), realized most of his competition (insurance brokerage) used the simple approach of shopping for expiration dates and quoting lower prices to find new business. That solved the customer’s cost issue, but only until the next broker came along with a lower price.

In response his commercial property and casualty business offered safety classes, introduced wellness classes, and provided blood screening to small businesses. The value added was obvious to the customer, and shopping price quickly evaporated. But Kent’s customers did not know they wanted safety classes. How did he get there?

Ben Carnevale (Former President of Oxford International….serving the OEM automotive industry) says, “Keep an open mind and recognize the opportunity provided by the relationship. By working hard to understand Chrysler and working closely in a ‘give and take’ relationship, we saw needs well ahead of our competition.” Oxford’s close communication with Chrysler allowed them to develop technology that solved problems. “We began by combining elements that led to higher efficiency for Chrysler. We saw the need for automation and delivered the first automated plant of the 80s.” The result was a better, more competitive product for both Oxford and Chrysler.

But the customer doesn’t always know what they want? What then? Oxford’s thorough understanding of the automotive industry not only brought better efficiency to Chrysler, Chrysler saw them as a problem-solver. “Here is how we did it. We sent three people into the assembly line to study their process. What happened to our product when it went in? We noticed we could reduce cost on packaging, we could provide a lighter product, and better quality was the result. We were perceived as going beyond the scope of a vendor – just by listening.”

So what’s the “so what” of all this? How do you listen to the customer when they don’t know what they want? Your success is tied to the questions you are not asking as well as they ones you are. What does that mean? Instead of merely asking the customer what they want, become the customer for a day. Invest time in understanding them…and their businesses. Ask them how they do things? Why they do them? How much it costs to do them? What keeps them up at night? What are their priorities for the next 12 months? If they could change three things about their business what would they be?

Take specific ideas to them and ask, what if? What would be the benefit to them? See the world through their eyes. This isn’t easy, but it must be deliberate and become a formal part of operating your business. As John Fox says this is tough but very necessary stuff.

Something to consider

Steve MacGill

Steve is the co-founder of PeerSight. PeerSight is the pioneer in virtual Peer Advisory Boards. We provide the platform business advisors use to deliver virtual peer advisory boards to their clients.

Comments

[software development uk]

That was inspiring,

Keep up the good work,

Thanks for writing, most people don't bother.