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Matt has over twenty years experience in strategy, marketing and market research. His particular expertise is market research and its flow through for marketing strategy - an essential ingredient to any business growth. He has a Masters in Commerce (Marketing), a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) and is currently completing a PhD in advertising.
In this DRG snapshot, Matt discusses the value of understanding what your clients think by getting candid feedback through Client Perception Surveys.
What value can businesses get from talking to their clients/customers?
At the end of the day, a business only has so much money; it only has so many resources; so much time and so many people. Client Perception Surveys offer businesses high value for minimum output. By getting in a third party to sit down and talk with your customers, your business is getting the value of actually finding out what it needs to be doing to be successful. So really the value to the business is in being able to be efficient in what it does – doing what matters and not wasting its time on what doesn’t matter. It gives value in being able to prioritise – it becomes clear what needs to be done to improve success, rather than wasting valuable time trying to do a hundred different things, some of which are going to work are some which aren’t.
How do you do it right?
You have two options. One is to do it yourself, take the customer out somewhere neutral, sit them down and ask if they were in your position, what would they do differently? That’s one approach. The only problem with this approach is that you are putting the customer in a bit of an awkward situation. They might not necessarily be as frank and as open as they would if talking to a third party.
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This is the second option. Businesses can bring in a third party, someone that comes across as understanding, professional and trustworthy. The other advantage of talking to a third party is that if that person is experienced, they are going to be able to ask questions in a way that the customer is really going to be able to answer. Whereas, if you don’t have that expertise to be able to talk to them and get inside their head and make them feel comfortable, you can waste a lot of effort, and the real gains of what they’re saying just might not come out because you’re just not asking the right questions.
What’s the best way to use the information gained?
This is where I think DRG is so uniquely well placed to help businesses. The question of why a business should be successful or what it needs to do to be successful is really, to me, one of its biggest challenges. From a selling point of view, the information gained should be used to convince potential customers and existing customers to choose your business, your product, and not your competitor’s. The information gained from the Client Perception Survey needs to be taken and used throughout all of your sales documents, your selling processes, and in coaching and training your sales people. It needs to be used to reinforce again and again “this is what’s important to the customer and this is what we do”, “these are the benefits and consequences the customer is after and in turn this is how we will give them that”. It simplifies the process of selling because you know what the customer is after and you can tailor everything to that. It sounds simple, but through communicating with them, you will give them what they want.
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