What does client feedback buy your fledgling business?
Provides information.
Is your offering good or what needs to change? We think we have a great product or service, especially if our business is doing well. But staying in tune with customers is critical feedback.
Helps you keep customers.
Sometimes even if the customer wasn’t thrilled with your service, getting their feedback is a great way to let them know you care about how the experience went. It is much more profitable to keep existing customers than to constantly acquire new ones.
Improves your product or service.
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses from the customer’s perspective is the start of how you may want to modify your offering. If you do get some strong feedback that something needs to change, that is great signal that you may lose customers if you don’t modify your offering.
Identifies clients that can promote you.
Client referrals are invaluable. When you get good feedback, you may find a client that wants to endorse you. That is the most powerful promotion vehicle that will keep you out in front of your competition.
So, what do we do at EGBI? If you have been following our exploits we have had four very good years since our re-launch of the organization in 2011 when it supported only 16 clients that were in business. As of 2014, we now have over 100 small businesses represented by our clients that did over $10 million in revenue last year. We have improved our curriculum and services during that time period. We also added the capability for clients to take our class remotely as a result of their input. But, did we think we were done? We actually conducted a focus group in December to get real feedback from our clients… who by all measures endorsed EGBI heartily. We still got some great constructive feedback. What resulted was a few of key changes that are already paying dividends.
The recent changes we’ve made: We are now offering ourCurso Empresarial (Spanish/Bi-lingual) course in the evening; we have developed an introductory workshop that has attracted many new clients; we developed a Marketing, Sales, and Customer Relations curriculum; finally, we created a modular approach to our program so that clients can take either the Marketing, Sales, & Customer Relationssessions or the Business Financials & Accounting session, or both. Even with the modular approach, our clients see the value of our other services.
So, although based on EGBI’s success, our offerings were strong, it’s not the best approach to keep doing what you (think you) “know” the clients need… what they want is very critical. Every business should be vigilant in the arena of securing and taking action based on customer feedback.