Build a Better Business - Customers

By Mark Odegard

The final component of building a better business is a group that ultimately drives your business: Customers. Your business exists because you meet a specific need that people have. Without customers – better yet, without satisfied customers – you would not make money.

If you are a successful business with repeat customers, then you likely understand the importance of maintaining effective relationships with your customers. Companies that don’t understand this don’t last very long. However, there are always opportunities to do better and to continually improve your products and services to meet the evolving needs of customers.

As we have mentioned in prior blog posts, customer expectations for the role of businesses are changing. Which means your business needs to change with them to ensure they view your products as adding value and view your company as acting responsibly. Here are a few ways you can accomplish this:

use third-party certifications of the quality of your products or services
have a tracking system in place to manage quality assurance issues
have a publicly known mechanism through which customers can provide product feedback, ask questions, or file complaints
measure customer satisfaction via a Net Promoter score or other methodology and share those scores publicly
have a formal program to incorporate customer testing and feedback into your product or service design

These are a few straight-forward, common sense approaches to ensure you understand and are meeting customer needs. There are other steps you can take as well; this is just a starting list. The more you develop systems that provide insight into your ability to meet and adapt to customer needs, the easier it is for you to deliver customer value and grow your business.

If you aren’t doing these things, you need to start because you quickly will be left behind. The ground has already shifted – if you are just now figuring this out then you are already playing catch-up.

Overwhelmed? No worries, we’ve got this! For the good.