Do you care about your customers? To what extent?
The success or failure of your business hinges on the answers to these questions.
All of the successful business leaders I know and admire care about their customers’ experience.
While brands today are beginning to realise what it really takes for the growth, progress, and success of their business, they are often caught juggling various teams and departments, because everything needs attention and tending to.
Yes, marketing, sales, design, operations and your very product or service matter. Even so, the fact remains – when your customers are happy, you can expect an increase in sales, growth, reputation, and a sustained pace of business.
Your customers are the reason your business is still up and running. So, when you take them seriously and work to improve their satisfaction, they will reward you with their loyalty.
When you purchase a product or service from a company, whether small or big, what are the first few aspects you would generally pay attention to?
– How the product or service was
– Whether it was a seamless process
– If you encountered an issue, how well the company dealt with it
– Would you recommend it to others?
Which business do you believe excels in customer service?
Amazon is one of the leading businesses that have prioritised customer service. Customer service is one of the core values at Amazon. Since its inception in 1995, their mission has been “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.”
“We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards.” – Jeff Bezos, Entrepreneur
If you are a business owner, you are certainly not new to this. In this article we intend to show you why you should prioritise customer service (if you do not already) and how best you can find a way to push along better results.
Customers usually expect companies to hear them out, understand their problem, work together to find a middle ground or a resolution and, at the end of it all, make them happy. To use the right words, establish an emotional connection, offer personalised service, and go the extra mile – and all of this over a phone call is no ordinary feat. When we think of how some companies surprise customers with their special gestures, Zappos also comes to mind.
But it’s not all about the calls. Some of the other aspects that Zappos and Amazon continue to wow customers with is genuinely going the extra mile. Here’s an example from the book Uncommon Service: The Zappos Case Study:
“If it doesn’t have the shoe you want in stock or in your size, a Zappos call center employee will go to three competitors’ sites to try to help you locate what you want to buy. Seventy-five per cent of its business comes from repeat customers, despite the fact that its prices are far from the lowest.”
One of our followers, Sue Sparrow rightly said, “If you don’t make their value clear, you risk losing them.”
Know what your customers want from you and your business
Think about this:
1. What are your customers looking for in the products or services you offer?
2. What problem do they experience that you can resolve with your offerings?
For instance, with my business Prominence Global, we offer LinkedIn solutions and expertise to business owners who encounter challenges as a brand on LinkedIn.
They struggle to get:
– More likes, comments, and shares
– Better exposure and reach
– The know-how to be a thought leader
– Leads, new clients, and sales
– Partnerships, collaborations, and opportunities
We understand their core problems, devise new strategies, programs, and products, and help them stand out on LinkedIn in these areas.
To make your customers happy, the first step is to understand their problems thoroughly and curate your offerings based on that.
Do you know your ideal customer’s pain points?
Follow the leaders
For example, we developed a program to meet the current challenges many businesses were facing.
Our team came up with the outline and it looked great to us, but we wanted to be sure it was what our future customers would also find useful. We needed to know what they were thinking.
For any business, the conundrum remains – will people buy my products or services?
For obvious reasons, only if your product fits the market as well as customer needs will your business survive.
So how exactly can you find out what the prospective clients are thinking and what the target audience’s needs are? You have to do research!
Market research can help you understand so much about what consumers are interested in and how you can help. These tried, tested, and traditional ways can aid you with market research before you launch your next product or service.
● Surveys – These are quick and easy, inexpensive, and can help you collect data in a short span of time.
● Polls – easy to do on social platforms.
● Interviews – Companies have often conducted door-to-door interviews or phone calls to speak with their prospective clients, asking them if they like their product, and what kinds of features they would like to see.
Did you know you can do the same research on LinkedIn as well?
With the number of users and growing content LinkedIn has today, it is no surprise that this platform has the answer to all of your questions.
Here’s why implementing market research on LinkedIn is a great move and a promising first step for your business:
1. Real-time customer opinions: You will be surprised at how much data you can collect under the same roof on LinkedIn. If you have decided to start with surveys or interviews, you can share the links on your profile and mention what it is for, what you are seeking to do, and why you need your readers’ help. It is also a great idea to tap into your existing customer base and your current network to ask them for their opinion.
2. New audiences: Reaching the right people through strategies that get their attention is now easier than ever on LinkedIn.
– Join professional market research groups, start interacting with the members there, and hunt down useful content.
– Try LinkedIn ads to reach out to your target audience for the research.
– Use the right keywords and hashtags to increase your opportunities for content impression.
3. Trends: LinkedIn has a host of options that allow you to discover trending ideas.
– LinkedIn’s Pulse: This section is home to thousands of articles posted every day. Chances are, people have already written about what you are conducting research on. These LinkedIn posts are a goldmine of useful data, statistics, and research that is already available and collated.
– Download whitepapers: These whitepapers generally contain a horde of industry insights, data, and trends that companies share as a free download. More often than not, you will chance upon these whitepapers on LinkedIn too. On many company pages, you can find the “insightful statistics” section.
– Keywords and hashtags: While these are a fairly recent addition on LinkedIn, this is the easiest way for you to find relevant open discussions available on LinkedIn on the same topic. All you need to do is head to the search tab, add the words, and wait for the results.
Final thoughts
Are you ready to get a head start with your market research on LinkedIn?
As one of our followers Yamini Naidu aptly put it, “We can all get complacent and think we know what our customers want. The tip of finding out what your potential customers are thinking by doing research allows evidence-based decision making.”
We tend to convince ourselves what we would like to believe. But this may not always align with the market’s current reality.
Especially now in the current climate, businesses struggle to understand how best to pivot in a way that benefits their customers. During such demanding times, I encourage you to leverage the power of LinkedIn.
Other ways we can help you
If you need some work-life balance, we can help. Here are 5 ways we can help you accelerate your Lead Generation results:
1. Grab our free 4-Week LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Course
It’s the road map to positioning your profile in the top 5% of the 700 million LinkedIn users currently active – Click Here
2. Join our FREE LinkedIn Group and connect with entrepreneurs who are scaling too
It’s our Facebook community where smart entrepreneurs learn to get more leads and smart ways to scale using LinkedIn — Click Here
3. Register for our FREE LinkedIn update webinar
Every 12-Weeks you can join us for a free update on all the latest news, ninja tips and outline of new features released by LinkedIn – Click Here
4. Join our LinkedIn Inner Circle Solo Program on our Free Trial
Click Here for more details
5. Work with our team privately
If you’d like to work directly with us to create new marketing opportunities send us a quick message Click here… tell us a little about your business and we’ll organise a time for a deeper chat
