Millennium Marketing Research®

Tom Schori DBA Millennium Marketing Research®, 808 Ironwood, Normal IL 61761, 309-532-8466

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What every customer wants to know: What can you do for me?

By Thomas R. Schori, Ph.D., and Michael L. Garee, Principals,  Millennium Marketing Research, 808 E. Ironwood, Normal, IL 61761-5239. Tel. 309-532-8466 -

No matter what type of business you’re in, it is vital to look at things not exclusively from your own perspective, but rather, from the perspective of the customer/prospective customer. And, regardless of the product or service, the customer/prospective customer really wants to know just one, simple thing from your business: What can your business (or your product or service) do for me? If this customer-focused question isn’t considered in the conduct of your business, or if you don’t have a specific, substantive answer to it, your business may not be long for this world.

In spite of the significant importance of this issue, many companies today still tend to largely ignore it. Look at the advertisements of many companies, for example. Are they usually chock full of "benefit statements," i.e., what the company, product or service can actually do for the customer/prospective customer? Or, are they far more likely to be chock full of self-focused, congratulatory "puffery" about the company or its products and services?

What is the perspective inside most companies today? Is there a continual, unrelenting commitment to determining what the customer/prospective customer genuinely wants and needs? Or, is the vast majority of time and effort spent attempting to divine what the customer/prospective customer probably wants and needs, based solely upon the attitudes and opinions of those inside the company? Even worse yet, does the company look first at what it needs, e.g., increased profits, new products, etc., before even considering what customers/prospective customers may want, if that consideration is made at all?

Avoid becoming insulated, isolated from customer. Anyone who has ever worked for a company of any size at all knows how very, very easy it is to become both insulated and isolated, insofar as the customer/prospective customer is concerned. Far more "pressing" matters can easily supplant consideration of the customer/prospective customer, e.g., trying to please a superior who may have a "hidden agenda" or two, attempting to do that which is necessary to get ahead in the company, etc. Nonetheless, to the extent that anyone inside a company fails to put the focus on the customer/prospective customer ahead of all other things, eventually that company and all within in it will pay a very dear price.

Customer monitoring must be ongoing, honest. How does a company go about accurately gauging the wants and needs of customers/prospective customers? There are of course many approaches that can be used, but each of them must have at least these things in common: they must be ongoing in nature and honest to a fault. In other words, it can’t be a "hit or miss," sometimes proposition because wants and needs can¾and do!¾change. What do we mean by "honest"? Simply that the company should take, at face value, what customers/prospective customers say when asked what they want and need. That is, every effort should be made to avoid having anyone inside the company "reinterpret" what customers/prospective customers say, e.g., "What they actually meant to say was. . . ," or, "What they probably meant was. . . ." Think this doesn’t happen? Think again!

Avoid ‘straw polling.’ Many companies that should certainly know better think they have effective, ongoing programs in place to monitor the needs and wants of customers/prospective customers. You’ve undoubtedly seen those "customer feedback" cards that some restaurant chains feature on dining tables, or the motel chains that have these same cards in their guest rooms. Ostensibly, this would seem to the uninitiated to be an effective way to monitor what customers/prospective customers want and needs. In fact, it’s really nothing more than a "straw poll," not scientific or necessarily reliable at all. Why? Because this method allows respondents to self-select, rather than being selected by the company in some random fashion.

The scientifically sound approach. Done correctly, opinion sampling, including the opinions of customers/prospective customers, involves the random selection of a specific number of members of a given population. This approach is used because it ensures that everybody within the population has an equal chance of being selected. Once selection of respondents is made, the approach to obtaining their opinions can, of course, be varied. For example, their opinions might be obtained by a print survey questionnaire, a telephone survey, in-person interviews, or any combination of these methods.

Regardless of the approach a company ultimately uses to effect the continual input of opinions, attitudes, likes, dislikes, wants, needs and desires of its customers/prospective customers, the key consideration is that the company uses some scientifically sound approach. This will guarantee that the company will be able to maintain the "pulse" of the customer/prospective customer base. It will also guarantee that, as long as it actually heeds what it’s learning from this input, the company will have its very best chance to remain viable, competitive and, equally important, successful in the long run.