60% of Your Customers Have NO IDEA Why to Choose You!

April 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A guest post from Ivana Taylor of Third Force Consulting – a strategic marketing firm that uses QuestionPro to collect and analyze customer feedback and input for brand development, customer satisfaction and loyalty.

You may or may not believe this, and you don’t have to. If you’ve ever had the experience of a customer leaving your company for a competing offering because of price, then you know what I’m talking about. But wait – they left because of “Price” — that’s the reason.

Price is never the reason you lose customers – it’s just the only thing they can actually see what’s different between you and the other guy. The only reason customers complain about your price is because they have no idea why they should choose you.

How to Get Your Customers to Tell You Why They Really Choose You

I know what you’re thinking — “Just ask them!” And you would be partly right. Asking your customers is absolutely the way to get to that answer. Our objective in this effort is to get to the reasons that get our customers to choose us REGARDLESS of price. And this takes just a few extra steps.

1. Observation. Simply pay attention to your customers and how they behave and respond as they experience what you offer. Literally pretend that you are a scientist and are observing them in their “Natural Habitat.” This may sound silly, but stepping out of yourself and watching your customers as if you were floating aboven them will prompt observations, questions and insights that you can use in your surveys.

2. In-Depth-Interviews. You might think you’re ready for that survey now, but hold back. Doing a series of in-depth-interviews with your ideal customers and discussing what you learned in your observation will get you much closer to developing a survey that’s quick, easy and will give you actual information that will drive your decisions. Be sure to ask the questions “What’s important to you when you are thinking about buying (insert your product or service here)? Ask what other alternatives they use.

3. Survey time. Now you can take a look at what you learned from the interviews and identify the top 3 – 5 areas that you want to confirm. For example, let’s say 5 out of 20 customers said they wanted 24 hour support. But you’re not sure which one to choose. That’s an ideal area to survey with a larger group. Measure how well your customers feel that you perform in areas that are important to them, ask how other alternatives or competitors perform against those same criteria. You will be astounded by the differentiatiing opportunities you discover.

4. Use Profile and Segmentation Options. QuestionPro has several ways that you can segment your responses — and this becomes especially important when you’re asking for information about “What’s important to you.” Different things are important to different people, so be sure to either tag or code your respondent list using one of the 5 custom fields that QuestionPro uses, or ask some profiling questions in the survey. Since it’s easy to go crazy with demographic questions and get drop outs to the survey, narrow it down to just the ones that will really make a difference. Also try to incorporate some “benefit” segment questions such as “Do you use overnight shipping more than once a month” I chose this question to illustrate how that answer might help you identify a “procrastinator” segment. As an example, a simple question like this can help you start developing higher-profit services around a segment that likes to wait until the last minute or is trying to service customers who wait until the last minute. Either way, they have different needs and would appreciate more service.

Putting the Results to Use

If you’ve done the process above, you are on track to start putting in place what you’ve learned from your customers. Pull your team together and start placing priorities on which programs you’re going to implement first.

Don’t let your hard work of using customer information go into Public Relations Wasteland. Communicate this entire process to them from beginning to end. Tell them what you’ve done and what you’re planning to do. As your new programs gain traction and you think enough people have experienced the new set up, run a regular, quick follow-up survey.

Use the Net Promoter Feature to Grow Profitability

Don’t forget to ask “The Ultimate Question” according to Fred Reicheld’s book; “How likely are you to refer (your company) to a friend or family member.” Use a scale of 1 to 10. Mark ratings from 1 – 5 as “Detractors”, ratings from 6 – 9 as “Passive” and ratings 9 – 10 as “Promoters.” QuestionPro will give you a wonderful chart that will show your results. Your goal is to be at 75% or above for your “Net Promoter Score.”

These are just a few easy and powerful ways that you can start setting yourself apart from your competition and any alternatives that your customers might be considering. In the first place, you’re focusing on your customer. In this economy, it seems like some businesses are more focused on putting their heads down instead of thinking creatively about how to keep the customers they already have. The next thing that you’re doing is actually putting the things your customers have asked for into practice – actually introducing new things at a time when many are cutting back!

And finally, you can continue to engage and involve them in the process by using a tool like IdeaScale. Simply place the IdeaScale widget on your website and let your customer tell you exactly what they want and how they want it. Your community of customers will be involved in designing their next level of service — and how can anyone leave something they’ve actually designed for themselves?

Profitable and happy customers are not a fantasy, they are a by-product of listening to your customers using simple, easy to use feedback tools.

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