Following on from my last post: What you think about your customers and how you serve them will define and drive what you receive from them, here’s another quote that I like to and from a topical source, given the upcoming US presidential elections.
You may not know this but Ross Perot, a former US presidential candidate, was also a very successful businessman having founded and built businesses which he then sold to the likes of General Motors and Dell.
Anyway, one of his most famous quotes was this:
Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.
Now, looking at the quote and thinking about it there are two elements to it:
- Talking face to face; and
- Listening
I would imagine that many, if not most, small business owners would say that they do this already.
And, they may.
But, I would ask you to ask yourself again. And, keep asking yourself on a regular basis.
Why? Well, I know I try to do this on a regular basis and often find myself sliding into bad habits and know I could do more. How about you?
However, I would also ask you to do more and add on another couple of questions that are all about closing the loop on talking face to face and listening.
- What have you agreed you are going to do on the back of that chat? and
- Once you’ve done what you agreed to, how are you letting your customer know?
Why are these so important? Well, according to some research that Customer Champions have completed (I wrote about it here):
- Up to 95% of all the firms they surveyed complete some sort of customer survey
- 50% inform their employee what their customers are saying
- 30% develop an action plan around the feedback
- 10% put that plan into place; and
- Only 5% communicate what they did and why back to their customers.
If you want to stand out in front of your customers then you need to close the loop.
