Who is your customer?

In his post, “What you should know”, Chris Brogan talks about the importance of knowing your customer. As business owners and entrepreneurs, we tend to know our products and services inside out but can we say the same about our customers?  He ends  by saying:

“How often do we just ASK our customer for some insight?”

When you better understand your customer and the challenges they face, you can better serve them. The question is: how can you get to know your customers better?

Here are 3 techniques which I have used:

1- Pick up the phone: Sure, this may sound strange and you’re probably thinking: “Call my customer out of the blue?” Well, not really. First, scan your customer list and identify the customers that are close to your ideal customer profile. Don’t have any (yet)? Move on to the next closest ones. Once you’ve put together a  list, write a personalized email to each of them stating your intention and why you are doing this.

Here’s an example:

Hi Veronica!
Hope you are doing well. I’m starting to plan my training courses for the next year and since you’re one of my customers who is  always looking for a new challenge, I’d love to get your feedback. Do you have some availability next week for a quick chat?

Believe it or not, it works and customers appreciate it. Customers like feeling valued and knowing that they have say in a product or service and that they are more than just ‘another customer’. By including them in your product planning you can also get them excited early on about what is coming up and get their honest feedback.  As a small business think of the edge this gives you over larger businesses. You think <insert large corporation name here> is  calling each one of their customers? Probably not! (unless it’s outsourced…)

2-Face to Face: If you are in the service industry and regularly meet your clients,  invite them for an informal chat and let them know that you value their feedback and are looking for ways to improve your business and your offerings to them. As in point 1, let them know in advance with a quick email about what you are doing (and avoid putting them on the spot) and if the next visit would be convenient for them.

3- Email Survey: Not ready to pick up the phone or meet in person yet? This is less personal but still works and you don’t have to deal with the scheduling aspect. As mentioned in point 1, target specific customers and create a survey with the minimum number of questions that you will get value out of- this way you are more likely to get responses. SurveyMonkey is a great free tool to setup surveys in no time and you can get detailed results. Optionally,  give your customers an incentive by offering a discount or a small prize. Getting valuable results will offset the cost.

Whichever approach you take, make sure you try and ask the same questions to each customer.  It is normal that the conversation  may go off topic but having a preset list of questions will help you guide the discussion and allow you to make conclusions  once you complete the process. And don’t worry if the conversation goes off on another tangent, often times it is in these tangents where the interesting information comes out!

You don’t have to go out and interview all of your customers, but if you make this a regular practice before long you will have a wealth of information about your customer-base. This valuable information will help you better understand your customers, how you can better serve them and attract more like them!

Have you done this type of exercise before? How did it go? Leave me a comment below!