As a small business owner or a person trying to get a business off the ground should always remember that the customer always comes first. Keeping this in mind why not take suggestions from your customers? Every idea for your business doesn’t need to come from you and you alone. A lot of customers also have experience in business and be able to share many words of wisdom. Not only may they have some words of wisdom they maybe able to broaden the scope of your market. 

First thing is to obtain customer comments. The way to do this is asking for customers to fill out a survey. How do you get them to fill out a survey? Have a customer appreciation day. Offer snacks, free food, or a complementary gift to anyone that maybe willing to write their thoughts down. Not only should you have events in your store for customers, but also at different locations throughout your community. Host a special event that maybe related to your store. A blood drive or maybe a food drive for the needy sponsored by your business.

More ways to grab ideas from customers is to look at your competitors customers. What is it that drives that customer to your competitor? The only way to know is to ask. Ask as if you are merely another layman looking for a good store to shop at. Ask about the service and the products and key in on items that maybe above and beyond normal. These details are exactly what your competitor has done to differentiate themselves from your business. Now think of how you can counteract these differences. Maybe you need to better define your niche or add a service to bring in more of these customers. 

Also, price differences can make a world of a difference. If your price is higher and your service is pretty much the same you will not be able to compete for much longer. People are more price conscious in the market than ever before. Customers go online to see who has the best price on Amazon, who ships faster and cheaper, and who has a warranty. Are you researching this data? If not you need to be. Technology is only going to make it easier for the consumer to get the most bang for their buck. 

Lastly, if you do have a website there are some special things you can do to gain your customers feedback. By the way if you don’t have a website you need to get one for your business. A website will allow you to reach more customers. Anyway, gaining customer feedback can come from pop up surveys offered by Opinion Matters or Survey Monkey. Both I have used and from a design look Opinion Matters seems to be the better of the two. Also, after a customer has ordered their product or has asked a question follow up through an email with that customer to see if they were satisfied with their experience. If you really want to be savvy like Enterprise call the customer a day after the product was delivered to make sure everything is okay and make sure to ask if there is anything else you can do for them. This will leave the door open for more sales and shows how much you care about the customer. If you can stay on top of these task you will be sure to see an improvement in your customer base. Customers like feeling as if they are a part of your business operations. In case you didn’t realize they are your business!

If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions please email us at questions@businessonthemound.com.

Tags: Competitive Advantage, Customer Service, Feedback

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 24th, 2008 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Customer Service, Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.