Customer Research and Feedback: Why You Should Never Accept Vague Answers
When doing customer research in the form of interviews, don’t accept vague answers like “you provide good service” — get them to tell you STORIES about what good service looks like.
While that “you provide good service” answer may be true and good to hear, you as a competitive owner or CEO of a small business can’t work with that.
So push a bit and ask what good service looks like and maybe even if they can tell you a story about a specific instance in which they felt they got good service.
Real life stories go much deeper and will reveal more insight into what actually motivates customers to buy.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with an owner or CEO that had no idea what their company competitive advantage was until we heard it right from the mouths of happy customers.
See real life example here:
Hard Truth! It’s lazy to assume that your customer wants the core service you provide whether that is #accounting, #consulting, #landscaping, #plumbing, #coaching, #training, etc.)
Instead, speak with them to learn what they believe they will get, achieve, dodge, or acquire based on buying what you sell.
This will uncover the real reason they do business with you and the problem you really solve for them.
For example, we were working with a tree service that attracted a specific type of homeowner. After interviewing their customers we spotted the following in several summaries — “They never damage my yard and always clean up when they’re done.”
Turns out that their ideal customer had beautiful front and back yards and didn’t want any damage done to the monthly landscaping work they pay for.
While most of their competitor’s messaging focused on how they were award-winning, voted best, and having 60yrs experience at removing trees our client began to focus on — “We never damage your yard and always clean up when we’re done.” — getting prospective homeowners to pay a premium to solve that problem.
