By Francis Moran
Whenever I present to groups or prospects on my Four Steps on the Road to Revenue™ marketing methodology, the first sentence out of my mouth is always, “It all begins with the customer.” My point is that marketing must start with identifying a customer requirement that your product or service can fulfill. Too many companies, and especially technology companies, start with building a product and then go looking for someone willing to buy it. It is far more effective to first find that burning pain or unmet need that you — and, preferably, you alone — can address in a unique manner that creates high value on both sides of the transaction.
I will admit that it is getting easier all the time to persuade folks of the sense of this approach. Every time we have rigorously applied this methodology, the client ends up with a clearly defined market need, a well-described customer, a sharply articulated value proposition, a product-development strategy that compells alignment with that market need, and an effective and measurable tactical plan to bring the product to market. In every case, the process is anchored by a detailed understanding of the customer, whether that comes from the client’s own reliable knowledge of customer requirements or from independent executive-interview-based or third-party research.
Even in those instances where companies achieve this customer centricity, though, it is much too frequent that they then set it all aside. Having plotted their course with the customer as their lode star, they then allow their single most accurate navigational tool to go rusty and unused through the balance of the voyage. The customer, the same compass that was consulted so heavily when determining exactly what should be built and how it should be brought to market, should continue to be checked time and time again to ensure the marketing ship is still on course, or to determine how the course needs to be corrected if conditions have changed.
The good news is that finding and using this hidden treasure map is incredibly easy to do. The bad news is that too many companies don’t do it, or do it badly. Here are a few good examples to guide you.
1. Carbonite is clearly a customer-centric company
I use Carbonite as a cloud-based backup for my laptop. I’ve been having some issues these past couple of weeks as I migrated to a new laptop and transferred my Carbonite license. I’ve had to make two customer-support calls and, shortly after the second one last week, I received an email asking me to take a few moments to complete a short survey about my experience. The email promised the survey would take no more than a minute or so. I clicked through and was delighted to find just three straightforward and easy-to-answer questions: On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied was I with Carbonite, how satisfied was I with my support call and how likely would I be to recommend Carbonite. True to the promise, I was in and out of that survey in much less than 60 seconds, and Carbonite had another valuable jewel to add to its treasure chest of customer feedback.
This vendor exhibited every behaviour of a relentlessly customer-centric organization. Its website offered me several different ways to interact with customer support and the most expensive (for Carbonite) way, telephone support, was easily found. (Unlike my much poorer experience in the same timeframe with HootSuite, which conducts customer support exclusively through Twitter and — entirely coincidentally, I’m sure! — ignored my several tweets until I made them part of my public timeline.) Carbonite’s telephone support was swift and skillful. And the final evidence that this company genuinely values customer satisfaction was the immediate and low-friction feedback survey.
2. How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?
At this past summer’s International Startup Festival, Sean Ellis of user-feedback analytics firm CatchFree gave some fundamental lessons in how to solicit and evaluate customer feedback. He said — and I have to agree whole heartedly — that one of the most useful questions to ask is, “How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?” If more than 40 percent of respondents say “very disappointed,” you may have a promising product, Ellis said.
This is an extraordinarily powerful question to ask but I can understand why a lot of companies might hesitate to ask it. They fear its power, and an answer that tells them the marketplace is ambivalent about their product. Be brave. If customers don’t place a very high value on what you’re doing, it’s in your very best interest to learn that just as soon as possible so you can get out of the dead-end business you’re in and go find something that will be highly valued.
3. If customer satisfaction really is important, measure how well you’re doing
My third example comes from the speaker we had at our monthly TEC (Vistage) meeting last week. Kraig Kramers is an internationally recognised expert on key performance indicators. I use several of his tools in the measurement of everything from our profit and loss statements to business development activities and even traffic levels on this website. Kramers told us that many companies say they always put their customers first but few actually bother to measure how true that is from the customer’s point of view. His Customer Satisfaction Index is a great starting point if you’re interested in developing such a scorecard within your own company.
Sailing a marketing ship on today’s turbulent oceans is tough enough. Stop denying yourself the insight, direction and guidance you can gain from customer feedback, one of marketing’s real treasure maps.
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