Dear Companies: How To Fuel Your Performance With Customer Insights
"Perfect is the enemy of the good". We all know this saying. However, we somehow think that this is not applicable to running a business. Companies spend hours and hours on perfecting and fine-tuning product features. The problem is, these features seem meaningful and important to them, not their target audience.
As a result, companies that fret over their visuals and site design end up losing to those brands that apply a consumer-centered approach. We don’t say that polishing various aspects of your product is bad. What we are trying to channel is that customers should be the center of your development process. Agile principles, remember?
So instead of burning cash on a flawless design, it is better to focus on customer feedback. No matter how technically impeccable your product is, you won’t generate revenue unless people want it.
Integrating Consumers’ Feedback Into Your Business Strategy
Customer feedback is the foundation of any profitable business, yet many companies and especially startups tend to avoid it like a mysterious disease (absolutely no COVID-related jokes intended here). And there is only one explanation – costs. The common myth is that collecting customer feedback is pricey and time-consuming. But is it really?
Also, some companies are afraid to step away and assess their product through the prism of a critic. Indeed, collecting negative feedback is painful, since we humans tend to cherish our brilliant ideas
However, by fetching negative feedback, you get the opportunity to envisage and mitigate risks, thus improving your product as well.
After all, when you’re crouched down, obsessing over the details for months, you can’t see the forest for the trees. Therefore, customer feedback is vital to make your company thrive. Otherwise, you are bound to go bust.
Hold on, don’t run away in tears. You still can be saved.
Here are some useful tips on integrating customer IMHOes into your business strategy.
1. Your staff should be worried about customer opinions as well.
By encouraging feedback from the top down, you set the pace for a customer-driven interaction. If your staff members are genuinely interested in fetching valuable insights, you will be able to loop these insights into other KPIs. This way, your customers will see that they are valued on every level.
2. Use social media.
Social media can be used not only for promoting your product but also for raising your brand awareness. There you have a chance to interact with customers directly, fetch the feedback you need, and address people’s comments. Forget praising reviews and A-list awards, direct communication is the king¸
3. Phone lines are still in.
Although most people prefer introverted channels of communication, phone lines are still a powerful tool for winning over customers and getting feedback. Complaints, issues, problems, praise — everything will come in handy.
4. Use your insights.
You should be ready to react quickly to customer reactions. Even if it means squeezing various iterations in a short period of time. The key is to improve your product so it is up to or exceeds customer expectations¸
5. Polish your processes.
Feedback is ever-evolving. This means you should always stay on top of it. Probably, you’ll have to hire extra staff to handle your phone calls or respond to comments. But if you’re missing on your insights, you are missing your profit. Thus, various monitoring tools can help you keep an eye on customer feedback you are getting.
On that note, we’d like to thank this newsletter’s sponsor: ScoutAPM which specializes in checking Pinpoint N+1 queries, memory bloat, slow queries, and more with application performance monitoring that ties bottlenecks to source code.
The Takeaway
A pioneering product idea is not enough. Feedback insight is what pushes your business forward and makes your product relevant. It allows you to get a better idea of your customer profile and boost your leading skills. You may be visionary, yet you are not a mind reader.
