Providing optimal products or services to customers requires asking the right questions to evaluate your business’ performance.
Take the time to think about your customers. Asking the following questions allows business owners to boil clients down to their cores, which makes understanding, marketing to, and serving them exponentially easier.
Who are they: interests, characteristics, values, etc.?
Keep your clients in mind, first and foremost, to know who you are selling to and how to attract them. Observing what customers find appealing or even who they are as individuals makes it easier to modify or accommodate them as necessary so that your business can offer the best it can for them. Everything you do as a business owner is to better serve the client, so know them.
Then, think about how much they are willing pay.
This insight might take some work to obtain, but finding the sweet spot of how much clients can be charged before they take their business elsewhere is integral to knowing how to price your products or services. It could be as easy as asking customers through a survey to find a common ground to as difficult as having to start out priced lowly and to raise your prices until clients drop off. There’s some experimental math involved, but it is worth figuring out.
What problem is your business solving, and does your business do it the best?
Acquiring feedback from clients can take many different forms. From one-on-one interactions, where business personnel asks them whether their experience was supreme and helpful, to written feedback on surveys after a service meeting or product delivery, to testimonials on social media or the company’s website. Customers will be brutally honest, especially if they’ve experienced subpar service. Keep client feedback in mind, and modify your business practices as you see best fits the direction the company should go in to be successful.
What is your reputation as a company?
Clients either have been with your business forever or are just becoming familiar; regardless, your business has made a name for itself in some way. Do clients know your business for quick service or for fumbling staff? Do they find your regular email blasts helpful or irritating? Do your business ads strike clients or potential clients as engaging or out-of-touch? Answering all of these questions is important, and acting upon these observations is the first step toward bettering your business.
Becoming more familiar with your customers is influential in strengthening the services and products that your business provides. Get to know them as people, including their values, interests, characteristics, and then think about what they can afford. Reflect on what your business offers, how well you’re offering it, and how you’re known as a company. Once these questions have been answered, your business will be on a greater path to success.