Market Survey

This article was contributed by Geoff Clynes. Geoff is a partner is Business Line, a Warragul-based marketing group offering help and advice on business development issues. This article is the tenth in a series. 

Among the many skills we expect of a marketer, the ability to think like a customer is really important.  As long as we can empathize with our ideal buyer, we can learn to predict what the buyer wants, plan how to present an attractive offer, lay out the information the buyer needs to make a choice.  Or else, our activities will seem irrelevant to our ideal customer.

As in any close relationship, one gets to understand people – any people – by talking a lot, and listening several times as much as you talk.  Sounds simple – talk to your customers, and make a real study of what they say.  This is your best means of decision support on any matter of interest to customers.  When you want to choose any action about customers (like location, prices, terms of trade, product changes, ad approaches) ask their opinion.

There’s no need to ruin any surprises or compromise any competitive secrets:  take the trouble to rephrase your questions in ways that show you people’s attitudes, or ask open questions that invite new ideas.  For example:

On price:         "Who are the most expensive suppliers around here?

"Where do you get the best value in the Centre?

"Did you shop around much before you made this selection?

"There are cheaper and dearer versions of this.  Why did you like this one?

On product:  "What would you like to see us add to our range?

"How could we make this more convenient?

"What do you think of our variety / choice here?

Having a conversation with customers is hard work in any business; retailers feel they don’t want to take up the customer’s time (or worse, keep other customers waiting), consultants don’t want to seem frivolous with the client’s time, service staff don’t like seeming to be nosey, so on.   Yet for all its discomfort, frequent, friendly probing is our best way to track trends and needs, and increase the value of our circle of advisers.

A while ago a restaurateur friend decided in a slow period to broaden the appeal of his traditional Vietnamese meals, and chose to add a fast food line, a fried chicken franchise.  To get it right he spent a week asking his regulars and passers-by how they viewed the idea, and got a shock.  Fify-odd passers-by didn’t really care either way, but almost half of his regular clients concluded he was moving away from his "healthy Vietnamese menu".  He could easily have thrown the baby out with the bath water, adding a product that lost him his regular customer base.

Try this:

Spend a day or two selecting the two or three customer issues that you’d most like to understand better.  Think about your image and positioning, pricing, service quality, terms of trade, policies, perhaps trading hours or customer convenience.

Then spend a week or so planning and experimenting on how to collect honest, useful comments:  ask for opinions, votes and suggestions, don’t invite judgements or criticism, keep the discussion friendly and chatty, no matter how the answers come – and be ready, cheerily and smoothly, to change subjects if you hit a nerve, or if someone’s in a hurry.

Then put it to use:

Try your questions and conversational skills on as many of your customers as possible.

How many is enough?  You never finish this job:  trends come and go, sensitivities change, new ideas are always worth testing. 

What kind of customers should you ask?  Every kind of customer, and if you have only a few customers, even ask while you’re prospecting.  Seek variety in the people you ask, try to understand the enormous variety of human opinion.  That’s politics!             

One golden rule:  never settle for a sample of one – seek confirmation, at the very least.

© Copyright Business Line 2003: This text is for use and publication by the Gippsland.com web portal, and may be reproduced and distributed without charge. It remains the property of Geoff Clynes & Associates (trading as Business Line), and may not be sold or distributed for profit without the owner’s express permission