Listen to our Customers

by Ray Brown

When was the last time someone called you and said “I’m simply calling to thank you for your business”?

We live in a world where the consumer has their choice of infinite products and services. They can compare notes with their “friends” around the world on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. Have business owners really woken up to the power-shift that is happening at an ever accelerating pace? Consumer surveys show that as little as 13% of consumers now trust company advertising, but around 90% have high levels of trust in recommendations from their family and friends.

Are you a Teller or a Listener?

Are we still “telling” or “shouting at” our customers when they really want a dialogue with their suppliers of products and services? The leading companies around the world are now starting to design and redesign their businesses from the outside in, rather than the inside out.

This means allowing your customers a voice in the development of your business, it means sourcing new ideas from your market rather than from another internal “new ideas” meeting. Companies like Amazon, Zappos and Salesforce continue growing at a phenomenal rate because they are outwardly focused on better listening to their customers.

In a recent Bain & Company survey, 80% of CEOs claimed that their customers were very satisfied with their company’s service. A survey of customers of those same companies revealed a level of satisfaction of only 8%.

There is a lot of talk about customer relationships and customer experience but these outcomes can only be achieved by the activity of employees with the right attitude and skills. No technology ever built a lasting customer relationship – only people do that !

One to One Relationships

The time may have come for us to question the very structure of our businesses. Our sales, marketing and IT silos worked well when we lived in a “one to many” environment,  it even worked when we segmented our markets and developed a “one to a few” approach.

What the consumer is now looking for is a “one to one” relationship. Meet my requirements exactly, know my history with your business and make it easy for me as an individual to deal with you OR I’ll go elsewhere.

Amazon is a perfect example of this “one to one” thinking in action. They will show you your purchasing history, they will even highlight to you if you are attempting to buy a book for a second time. They’ll make recommendations based on your purchasing history and they’ll let you, as an individual, comment positively or negatively on any of the books that they are stocking.

Listen with no Outcome in mind

So where does listening fit into this story? Wilfred Bion, a renowned psychiatrist, once said “the purest form of communication is to listen without memory or desire.” So how often do we listen to our clients or customers without a sales agenda?

A classic example of where businesses get it wrong is in our banks where "relationship managers" all have targets to cross-sell and up-sell. How would it be if we reallocated even 10% of our customer contact resources to really listening and learning from our customer base ?

Let’s bring the voice of our customers into our boardrooms and planning sessions.

As a result of technology we now have the opportunity to develop mass two-way communication for the first time.

Consumers are looking for connectivity and transparency.

Those businesses that seek out the expectations of their customers and consistently deliver against these expectations will be the winners in our fast-changing world.

Shirlaws delivers internal leadership training sessions on Customer Service, Client Management, and Improving Client Profitability, as well as business coaching projects to support the strategy and implementation of these priorities. As a complimentary extra for you, any of our coaches will be delighted to discuss with you how you can determine whether these options are important for your business today. Contact Shirlaws for more information.

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