Increasing customer satisfaction through customer intimacy depends on one very important thing – How well you know your customer base. Who is it that is doing business with you? This may seem very basic and rudimentary, but it is actually one of the factors that most businesses have taken the time to ask themselves.
We all know that customer are the ones who bring dollars into our company and sustain us financially, but who are they really? It’s time to discuss this point with your leadership team. You need to clearly define who your customers are in order to take the next step toward customer intimacy. You can’t get to know someone intimately on a personal level without getting to know more about them. The same holds true in the professional world.
By clearing identifying who your customers are, you’ll be better able to decipher how to serve them better. Discuss your customer base with your leadership team, front line staff, and sales staff. What type of customers do you have? Are they individuals or businesses? Are they large companies, small businesses, or solo-prenuers? How long have they been in business? What field are they in? What are their similarities? What are their differences? Ask yourselves these questions in order to open up the discussion to dive deeply for knowledge. You must determine who your customers are before you can go about improving your business for their benefit. If you don’t know who you are serving, it’s really just a shot in the dark.
Improving customer service and satisfaction requires an appreciation of the people that are currently coming to you for your products and services. By doing this exercise, you may even discover that the people who are keeping you in business are not the ones you originally thought would ever do business with you. You never know unless you ask. By asking, you understand. When you understand, you are in a better position to serve and increase customer loyalty, as well as profits.
I couldn’t agree more that you must define and understand your customer base in order to be successful. I am a retail customer service manager and last year I saw the company I work for completely forget our customer base by bringing in items that were for a completely different demographic. As a result sales lagged and the product was finally sold for pennies on the dollar.