5 Questions You Should Ask Every Customer
Constantly seeking feedback from your customers is a great way to learn how to market your business more effectively. If you have never done this before, do it immediately as it is one of the best ways to discover what you do that actually differentiates you from your competition.
Seeking feedback is also a great way to get better and plug gaps. If you are not receiving a large amount of your business by way of referral or word of mouth, you have probably got some gaps in your processes.
By asking the five questions below you will be rewarded with tremendous insight and you will also find that your customers enjoy being asked what they think. One word of caution, don't accept vague answers like "you provide good service." While that may be true and good to hear, you can't work with that. Push a bit and ask what good service looks like and maybe even if they can tell you about a specific instance in which they felt they got good service.
1. What made you decide to hire us/buy from us in the first place?
This is a good baseline question for your marketing. It can get at how effective your advertisements, message, and lead conversion processes are working. Sometimes you might also hear customers talk about the personal connection or culture that felt right in this question.
2. What's one thing we do better than others you do business with?
In this question you are trying to discover something that you can work with as a true differentiator. This is probably the question you will need to work hardest at getting specifics. You want to look for words and phrases and actual experiences that keep coming up over and over again, no matter how insignificant they may seem to you. If your customers are explaining what they value about what you do, you may want to consider making that the core marketing message for your business.
3. What's one thing we could do to create a better experience for you?
On the surface this question could be looked at as a customer service improvement question, and it may be, but the true gold in this question is when your customers can identify an innovation. Sometimes we go along doing what we have always done and then out of the blue a customer says something like, "I sure wish it came like this," and all of a sudden it is painfully clear how you can create a meaningful innovation to your products, services, and processes. Push your customers to describe the perfect experience buying what you sell.
4. Do you refer us to other customers, and if so, why?
This is the ultimate question of satisfaction because a truthful answer means your customer likes the product and likes the experience of getting the product.
Small businesses can take this a step deeper and start understanding specifically why they get referrals and perhaps the exact words and phrases a customer might use when describing to a friend why your company is the best.
5. What would you Google to find a business like ours?
This is the new lead generation question, but understanding what it implies is very important. If you want to get very, very good at being found online, around the world, or around the town, you have to know everything you can about the actual terms and phrases your customers use when they go looking for companies like yours. Far too often businesses optimize their websites around industry jargon and complicated technical terms when people really search for "stuff to make my life better."
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