« The ROI Tool Kit: Unlocking The Mystery of Determining Trade Show ROI | Home | Technology Got You Pulling Your Hair Out? »
Are You Hearing The ‘Voice of The Customer’?
By Joyce McKee | February 12, 2008
The Voice of the Customer – this is something we should be listening to with avid interest.
Our customers are constantly shifting and changing. Are you listening?
Last week in the BtoB Magazine there was a promotional piece written by Kerry Gumas on the “’Voice of the Customer’ heard loud and clear” in their Endnote section.
http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080208/MEDIABUSINESS/812401936/1180/FREE
The questions Kerry poses our ones we all should be asking in our own companies. Here they are:
“At Questex Media Group, we are completely engaged in navigating today’s fluid, fast-changing business environment. To stay on course, we’ve begun using Voice of the Customer programs, incorporating both structured and unstructured feedback to constantly ask and answer three basic questions: What do our customers want? Are we providing it to them effectively? And how can we do better? Beyond that, we’ve endeavored to create a cultural environment that encourages and enables our team members to make decisions based on those answers, because listening is not enough. You have to act.”
He goes on to say that there are constant research and feedback systems in place to monitor what the customer is doing (or not doing).
In producing a trade show experience, we need to be totally in tune with our customers and have that reflect itself through the entire process.
I wonder – have you talked to your customer lately and what did they say?
It would be interesting to hear your reactions to that question – please share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment here if you like.
Until next time…
Joyce McKee
Topics: Trade Show Talk |
February 25th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Nice post Joyce. I really like Kerry’s comments here…but I would like to hear about specifically what they are doing to set up these “listening posts” throughout their company. If they are doing this, they are one of the few b-to-b media companies that have been able to do it on a consistent basis.
Regarding your question, here is a good article by Ian Lurie that speaks directly to what you are talking about.
http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2008/02/warning_make_web_visitors_insi.htm
I really like the one about calling your customers when they buy. Most companies just don’t do that anymore. What a difference that would make if that was done on a consistent basis.
Keep up the great work.
Joe