#NoBullshitCX #20yearsFuturelab

“Don’t think. Ask!”

Think you know your customers? Think again. When we started to work on a Voice of the Customer (VoC) programme for a large building materials producer, we arranged a kick-off workshop to develop the roll-out plan with a local team. Their sales manager confidently claimed: “We know what our customers want. They demand top quality, rapid delivery, and low prices. Until we have resolved our logistical issues and built a new factory, they will be unhappy.”But our VoC pilot painted a different reality. Turned out, customers could tolerate delays, knowing these weren’t always within the sales team’s control. The real deal-breaker? Bad communication about deliveries. Imagine the cost of idle building crews, waiting on falsely promised deliveries.

What seemed to be a logistics problem turned out to be a communications issue. To the credit of the country team: they took it to the heart, and in the following difficult COVID years their honesty helped them retain many customers. While logistics took time to fix, simply forewarning customers about schedule changes made a world of difference. In my experience, NO company really knows what their customers think without actually asking them. Great products and services come not just from great visions, but from having a direct contact with your customers.

Do you ask your customers the right questions?

NOTE:

From now on, every Friday, here: Kolle’s column about #NoBullshitCX #20yearsFuturelab