Know Your Customers' Needs

Simply asking your customers what they want, what they need and what they expect from you is an important part of developing your business with them. Being involved with your customers, however, is going beyond simply asking. Being involved with your customers can help you understand their needs more thoroughly and may even unearth needs that they didn’t even know they had.

Being involved means knowing how your customers use your product to improve their lifestyles or their businesses. This calls for meetings, on-site observations and face-to-face interaction. Also, providing feedback channels for your customers and encouraging their use shows that you are open to their suggestions and responsive to their needs as they develop.

Being involved will result in a long list of needs and expectations from your customers that you can use to evaluate your business relationships with them.

Take the needs from this list and divide them into three categories. First, you’ll have the needs you’re currently meeting. This can be a feel good exercise, but it can also be a reality check. Ensure that what you think is happening is for real and back it up with evidence.

Second, you’ll have the needs you cannot meet. These may come from customers who expect too much. Most of the time, this category won’t contain many items, but it’s still good to have them and put them on the back burner for future planning.

What you’re left with will make up your third category, the needs you could be meeting better with a little creativity and action. Pull your resources together and develop an action plan on how you can improve on meeting these needs. Then, take your proposal back to your customer and explain how you can do better business together.

Being involved with your customer means taking initiative. Don’t wait for them to tell you what they want all the time. Help them to detect their needs, and explain to them how you can meet them. This changes your role from a supplier to a true business partner.