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Know thy customer; managers need to use digital tools to more effectively pinpoint customers’ needs

Good business managers understand their customers.

It sounds obvious but this basic fact is too often forgotten and so bears underscoring.

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People walk on a street in Tokyo, each one a customer. Photo: AP,Koji Sasahara
Alex Trott

Good business managers understand their customers.

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It sounds obvious but this basic fact is too often forgotten and so bears underscoring.

New tools are now at executives’ disposal to get to know their clients — always a business objective for the best companies. The result is it is easier to gather information about customer needs. Then to analyse and distribute it more quickly and efficiently to front-line staff, or to customers themselves.

Consider surveys. In the past, this was an expensive and time-consuming endeavour to do well. Remember the days of door-to-door pollsters? Or random telemarketing calls? Now with digital products such as SurveyMonkey, all you need do is to craft thoughtful questions and perhaps dangle a prize for answering. (Think about how many times a free mobile phone or tablet has motivated you to fill out a survey!)

To be sure, the key to a good survey is good questions, and they aren’t always easy to write. Similarly, once you get your answers the hard yards are in the analysis and designing a plan of action for what to do with them.

But if your customers are missing in action, perhaps use that acronym as a call to arms.
Think MIA; Measure, Identify then Act.

But if your customers are missing in action, perhaps use that acronym as a call to arms.

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