Implementing Client Feedback When Devising New Business Ideas

When strategizing for your business's future objectives, how much of a role do the needs of your customers play? If you neglect the ever-changing priorities of your client base, your business could fall behind in the marketplace and lose out on important new revenue.

Since your customers' needs are constantly evolving, it's imperative to get ahead by collecting feedback and testing your new business ideas. Here are several essential steps you can take to put your customers first and create some new strategies to solve their problems more effectively.

Sending surveys and incentivizing clients to complete them.

Collecting information about your clients' experiences and additional needs is easier to do by sending out post-service surveys. Using questionnaires like these, you can get valuable information about where your services can be improved, as well as what new options or preferences customers would like to have available to them. Incentivizing your customers with rewards when they fill out surveys helps collect even more feedback, and in turn, deliver value to them.

Setting up surveys in a standard format with radio buttons or multiple-choice options can make analyzing results easier. Rather than sifting through paragraphs of individually written feedback, identifying what the most selected options are is a much more efficient method. Eliminating manual entry from your surveys also helps your clients feel less intimidated when they are providing feedback.

Studying feedback for trends.

Once you've received feedback from your customers, it's imperative to look for similarities. Are there any common themes within the collected information, or trends indicating that clients want to see particular services more than others?

Identifying patterns in your business (both good and bad), as well as customers' preferences, helps further optimize your workflows and steer the direction of new products and initiatives. For example, if you're running a plumbing company, exploring whether HVAC services would be a worthwhile addition to your portfolio of services can be done by polling your clients and weighing the additional costs versus the new potential revenue it could generate. Keeping a read on the pulse of the marketplace (and your clients' needs) should ultimately help you decide whether or not to pursue a new business strategy.

Testing new products or services based off feedback.

Piloting a new product or an extension to your existing services (based off customer insights) can serve as the first step to testing a new revenue stream's potential. Trying new products or services on a smaller scale can help you decide if it's eventually something you want to roll out across your entire business plan (or abandon altogether).

Comparing the new strategy's generated profit to what your customer feedback initially indicated is a good way to confirm that things are working. With a constant fine-tuning of the most effective products and services and the debut of new ideas for your customers to enjoy, you can establish your company as a pioneer in its industry and increase profitability.

Measuring revenue results and product data.

Judging the consumer response to your newest strategy or product and gauging whether further interest is likely to follow can be accomplished with revenue analytics. Testing new products and services and the impact they have on your bottom line provides indirect indicators of how your customers feel about the new strategies your business rolls out.

If response and initial sales are strong, consider offering the new product or service addition full-time. Conversely, as interest in seasonal promotions or offerings with shorter shelf-lives declines, remove these from your product/service collection, so you're only putting the most impactful solutions in front of your customers.

Adjust future business strategies as needed.

Continuing to pursue objectives that are proving to be more successful than others empowers you to focus more on generating additional revenue. Letting customers' feedback guide where your strategies go into the future is a smart way to gain direction and formulate effective plans.

With a constant process of information collection, analysis, and strategizing, your business is put in a better position to succeed. Addressing new problems your customers face with researched and effective strategies helps your company remain adaptable as the future of your industry unfolds.

For all other aspects of your organization's processes, rely on TeamWherx® to help collect data and craft new, more efficient operational strategies. By using our solution to work smarter and provide better service to customers, you can support new initiatives and revolutionize how your company does business.