Nurturing and maintaining a dialogue with customers are central practices of any successful business. Let’s examine what you stand to gain from investing in your customers and collecting their feedback.
Intelligence. Simply put, customer feedback helps you understand your consumers—their preferences, needs, and desires. You may think you know what your customers want, but chances are you’ll be surprised what you learn when you take the time to ask. This intelligence will empower you to set new goals, make changes, and improve your business in myriad ways.
Connection. When you gather customer feedback, you’re connecting with your customer on a personal level and expressing that you care about what they think. This, in it of itself, is valuable. You’re conveying that you have the drive and passion to deliver quality services and goods—and this breeds customer loyalty. On top of this, collecting feedback engages your customers and keeps your business at the forefront of their minds.
Competition. Collecting customer feedback is a terrific way to learn how consumers perceive and use your product in comparison to those of your competitors. In fact, you often end up learning a lot about the competition when you collect customer feedback. You may pick up invaluable intelligence about a competitor’s new products, sales strategies, campaigns, strengths, and weaknesses.
Promotion. It’s certainly fulfilling to hear from a satisfied customer. Understanding what you’re doing right is just as important as coming to terms with what you’re not doing well. Positive comments and stories from happy customers can serve as wonderful material to promote your business, in the form of customer testimonials and endorsements.
Over time, as you sustain constructive conversations with customers, your business will likely adapt and evolve based on the insights you generate. Remember to check in periodically and see if your services and products have evolved to a point that it’s time to consider rebranding and revising your visual identity accordingly.
–Building a Business: The Importance of Collecting Customer Feedback
