Introduction
Anticipating customer needs is a key element in staff performance. Your staff are uniquely placed to do this. Asking customers themselves isn’t the best option.
Henry and Steve
“They’d have wanted a faster horse.” That’s what Henry Ford is alleged to have said when asked why he didn’t ask his customers whether they wanted his motor car. And Steve Jobs didn’t care much for surveying customers about possible new products. “By the time you build it, they’ll want something else,” he said.
Customer Needs And Staff Performance
It’s agonizingly simple. If you don’t have a product or service that you target market wants, staff performance will be poor. If customers don’t want what you offer, it’s very hard to sell.
Needs?
Don’t get too concerned with what customers actually “need” either. It’s our job to create what they want. If you’re assessment’s right you’ll create a need. Remember, no one was clamoring for a horseless carriage a hundred years ago or for an iPad fifteen years ago. And that’s where your staff have a unique role to play … if you let them.
Why Staff Are Important
It’s simple. Your staff have daily, even hourly, contact with customers. They talk to them, listen to them and interact with them as part of their daily work. Staff know what pleases them, upsets them, excites them and bores them. It’s simply a matter of finding a way to harness the unique information that staff already have and continue to accumulate.
What About The Figures?
The “figures”, sales, revenues, advertising responses and the like will tell you “what’s happening”. The information that staff have will help tell you “why”. And not only salespeople have this information. Staff involved in returns, repairs, complaints and after sales service have a gold mine of information. You need a system to dig it out.
It’s A Systems Issue
You need systems in place to glean the customer response data that’s valuable. It’s not about customer service or customer relations training or interpersonal skill development. You need systems to enable staff to find out the “why” and the “how” as well as the “what”.
What Sort Of Systems
You’ll need systems that deliver information about issues such as
- What was the thing that pleased you most when dealing with us?
- Where do you believe we could improve the quality of our service?
- What do we do that other similar companies don’t that you feel makes us good to deal with?
- In your opinion what makes – name your product or service – desirable to use instead of competitive products?
- What’s the best thing for you about dealing with us?
Notice that these questions are about opinions and feelings. They’re not about measurable effectiveness. The “figures” will tell you that. In the final analysis people don’t “buy quality”. They buy “value” in their terms. And staff are the people who can best help you determine whether your idea of “value” matches that of the customer.
Immediate And Personal
Let me make something clear. The sort of system I’m writing about is both immediate and personal. Sending surveys for completion is laudable. But it’s impersonal and delayed. Surveys are probably better used two weeks or a month after the sale or interaction.
Staff Are Ideal People To Use
Whether it’s a retail salesperson, a repairman, a consultant, a technician or an installer, these are the people best placed to find out “why?”. They’ve established a relationship with the customer. And they’re “on the spot”.
It’s About Service Quality Not Product Quality
You’re trying to ascertain whether you and your people are pleasing customers and prospects. You are not trying to establish whether your product or service “works” well. Your figures tell you that. When someone says, “I want the best”, don’t imagine for a moment that what they mean by “best” is what you mean by “best”.
A Quick Case Study
Among my long standing clients is a domestic maintenance plumbing company. They are market leaders. Ten years ago they did all and any maintenance plumbing they could get. Today they do only domestic maintenance plumbing. They’re totally focused. They also understand that they’re one of hundreds of maintenance plumbing companies in Sydney. Apart from focus, they have only one thing that differentiates them from their competitors: service. They offer two major guarantees: “If we’re late you don’t pay” and “We’ll leave your worksite cleaner than we found it”.
Not a word about “better plumbing”!
Another Example
I can’t tell you where the following event occurred. But the company is a major white goods manufacturer. They were having major problems with refrigerator doors that stopped sealing properly after relatively little use. The conventional, customers service, complaints form, “fix it” meetings didn’t improve. But their records enabled them to tell which assembler put together each door. They started connecting the angry customers direct to the assembler who’d made the door. Door problems virtually disappeared within a month.
The Unspoken Advantage
When you and your people establish the sort of relationship I’m describing with your customers, there’s another major advantage. You won’t need to do surveys about what your customers want or need, you’ll know. Your relationships will see to that.
Customer Service And Complaints Staff
I’m about to upset some of you … sorry! You do not need specialist customer service, customer relations or staff carrying similar titles in your business. Your staff have daily customer contact. They are your customer relations experts. Who could be better placed?
Conclusion
I know that what I’ve suggested isn’t regarded as “best practice”. But if you want your staff to be fully engaged with your business and your customers, make customer relations an important part of their role.
What To Do Now
Leave a comment below. Contact me direct with questions or queries. Most importantly, sit down now and review your current system for asking those “why” questions I mentioned. How well are you using your staff to get the answers. How could you do it better? What benefits would be in it for you? And abandon any plans for formal customer surveys about prospective new products or services. You’ll get that information when your staff fulfill their customer relations roles.
