This is not a new idea, but it bears reminding. If you listen well to your customers, they will tell you what to do to grow your business. They’ll tell you what’s strong and weak in your product and service. They’ll tell you what products they would buy if you offered them. They’ll ask questions that tell you what’s confusing about your product information. It’s not safe to assume that your customers think the same way you do, that they care about what you care about, or that they know what you know.

Negative feedback (via complaints, refund requests, etc) is more valuable than feedback that says “don’t change a thing”. Yet I’ve noticed, without systems in place, glowing reviews end up on the office bulletin board, and complaints end up nowhere in sight.

Decision makers need to be connected to the stream of feedback coming from their customers. At my companies our software systems are setup to email customer feedback to me and key managers when it’s entered by a customer service rep. We make changes and fix glitches all the time based on what we hear.

Also, pay attention to what your customers are doing on your web site, that’s a form of listening too. I’ve started reviewing what customers search for on our web sites. (The search information is anonymized to protect privacy.) Are they looking for a product that we don’t carry? Are they having a hard time finding something that we do carry? Is our search feature showing relevant results?

You can’t guess what your customers want, the only way to know is to listen well, and knowing better what customers want is a substantial competitive advantage.