The Advantages of Talking to Your Customers.
The Advantages of Talking to Your Customers
Have you noticed, sometimes something that seems like a no-brainer can be surprisingly absent!
Imagine a world where your sales pipeline is robust, your brand is the go-to in your market, and word-of-mouth referrals are abundant.
Prospects come seeking you out, and you're always two steps ahead, anticipating market shifts and innovating with confidence.
Fact or Fiction?
This scenario might sound idealistic! The reality for many tech companies is quite different.
We launch products that haven’t been properly validated and blame external circumstances or people when things don’t take off as we’d expected
We struggle to get funding for our idea
We miss opportunities in the market
We produce the ‘perfect’ product but struggle to shift people from other offerings
We see competitors gaining market share at our expense
The sales process is long and painful
Customers just don’t seem to ‘get’ the value we're offering
I believe that talking with your customers and prospects can make a real difference.
And when I say ‘talk’, what I really mean is ‘listen’.
Talking to your customers isn't just about sales, asking for confirmation of your next innovation, or resolving an issue; it's about genuine feedback and insight.
You’re not asking a customer to say what they think they would do, or what they might buy, but stepping into their shoes and understanding their worlds.
Understanding pain points and difficulties in their current operation
Identifying solutions to the problems they are actively seeking to solve
Understanding their workarounds and the alternatives they are using
Understanding why today’s ‘good enough’ might be still better than your ‘awesome’ offering
Refining your Ideal Customer Persona, which in turn sharpens your marketing messages and strategies
Gaining invaluable feedback that informs product development and improves customer retention
Despite knowing the importance, many CEOs, founders, and marketers are not engaging with customers for true listening and feedback.
Are you one of them?
When was the last time you had a listening conversation with a customer?
I’m talking about one that wasn’t about sales, or customer service issues, but was about their goals and challenges?
You Are Not Alone
There are common barriers that prevent regular customer engagement. Recognising these is the first step to overcoming them:
Not understanding how vital it is: sometimes we are so busy building our products or services that we forget to step into our customers' shoes. We think we already KNOW the problem
Already done it: some businesses did customer validation really well at the early stages of establishing their business, but we forget that it is important to do this on an ongoing basis
Too busy: running, or working in a small to mid-sized company is busy. There’s seldom enough time or money. Customer engagement is important, but often not urgent - it’s not the thing that is crying for your attention
Fear of negative feedback: whether you admit it or not, this is a big one that holds us back. It’s not just about negative feedback “I don’t like your thing,” in some ways the “meh, I don’t really care” is even worse
Different purposes: you might be talking with customers all the time, but it is mostly about the operational stuff, i.e. the product or service engagement you have, including sales discussions, implementation, upselling, trouble-shooting etc.. This can often mask the fact you aren’t really engaging in a two-way dialogue
An echo-chamber: you might be really active in relevant groups and community forums and think this is giving you all the feedback and engagement you need. This is a great place to be - but you also need to be aware it may be an echo chamber, where not all your customers are engaged; or those that speak loudest get disproportionate attention. A bit like real life! It might also show only the issues with current solutions, rather than highlighting alternatives or gaps
The Business Case for Customer Conversations
I really believe that engaging with your customers can transform your business.
It helps you create products that are needed, find sales easily and with marketing messages that resonate.
The bottom line is all about sales and $$$.
Research indicates customer will:
Be more inclined to buy
Buy more
Stay with you longer
Need more convincing?
CB Insights analysed start-up failures and found 35% failed due to the lack of market need, the second highest cause of all failures
CEB found that customer stakeholders who perceived supplier content to be tailored to their specific needs were 40% more willing to buy from that supplier than stakeholders who didn’t
The Content Marketing Institute found that 56% of businesses that used personas for content marketing achieved higher quality leads, and 36% saw shorter sales cycles
According to DemandGen, using buyer personas can reduce the cost of customer acquisition by 14% and length of the sales cycle by 10%
Rob Holland of Feedback Loop claims that 85% new products fail due to a lack of customer testing (Forbes)
More than 91% of dissatisfied customers will leave without complaining (ThinkJar). Talking to customers can help you understand what you're doing right and what needs improvement before it's too late
If you could do with some guidance on how to engage with customers, book a FREE 30-minute call here or download my "Talk to Your Customers" ebook.
Get In Touch
I provide leadership, support and direction for growing Kiwi tech and innovation companies as a ‘virtual’ (remotely) or 'fractional' (part-time) Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) - an affordable way to get senior thinking and direction for businesses.
If you could do with some help to grow your business, get in touch
Helen Shorthouse
Virtual / Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)