Engaging your current customers is an underutilized resource for building new product idea and services. There are some right ways and wrong ways to handle this as well as some great reasons to ask your customers what they think about your business.
Initially, how you ask your customers is just as important as asking. There is a downside to asking the wrong questions in the wrong manner that can be counterproductive. A couple of years ago Stanford University published a study on the matter and cautioned not to ask too many questions and place too much emphasis on grading certain aspects of their experience. Make sure that your questions are well thought out as to the type of response that you want as well make sure that the questions are brief.
So what can you do? In the post 3 Things Your Customers Won’t Tell You Unless You Ask, they break down 3 simple questions to ask your customers to give you great feedback on your business. The three questions are:
- Why Do You Enjoy Being My Customer?
- What Else Do You Wish My Business Did?
- Who Should You Tell About My Business?
The first 2 questions will offer great feedback on creating new products and services. Asking your customers what they enjoy about your business allows you to get an understanding for what your businesses strengths are and therefore allow you to create around that.
The second question of what you wish my business did is obvious. These are just ideas from your clients on what other products and services that they would consider buying from you.
This is a simple first step to expanding your business utilizing resources that you already have at your disposal…your current customer base. This is often overlooked but asking your customers what they think is a valuable tool.
What other questions can you think of that are useful? How has this worked for your business? What should business owners be aware of when asking for customer feedback?
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