Wednesdays With Will - Voice Of The Customer

Wednesdays With Will - Voice Of The Customer

Wednesdays With Will: Voice Of The Customer

By William Marchesano, Technology Advisor & Evangelist
Welcome back!  In our last installment we discussed how you can better visualize your business with the use of dashboards to represent data.  This week’s topic is going to touch on the same topic but from the other end…gathering the data.  There are many ways to gather data but it’s important that the information collected is leading to what you’d like to know.  One of the most tried and true ways to accomplish this is through surveys.  Today we are going to discuss why the voice of the customer is a key component for meaningful business analytics and decision making.
The primary reason most businesses use surveys is to develop a go to market strategy for acquiring new business or to learn more about their existing clients.  When crafting your go to market strategy it’s important to understand the market you will be servicing.  You will need a clear grasp of your value proposition including how to position your product or service and the price it can be sold.  This is all part of the research stage and surveys can be leveraged for acquiring this information.  It can be very costly for an organization to launch a new product or expand their business without doing the proper research and having a proper understanding of their potential market.
When used for an existing customer, the goal may be to get a heartbeat on the business relationship between the client and your organization.  This is important for understanding what your business does great and where there may be opportunity for improvement.  It can be crucial for identifying gaps in current service.  It also leads to an increase in customer satisfaction and retention.  This is the first step in transforming your client from a customer to an advocate of your business.
Surveys can be used to increase sales with both new clients and existing customers.  Since a survey gives your customers a voice, you are given a defined understanding of their need and possibly others in the same industry.  This information can then be used in a targeted market campaign to let others with the same challenge know that your organization has a solution.  We live in the age of the internet where most people will do their own research prior to engaging with a salesperson.  Demonstrating an understanding of a challenge and a possible solution helps build trust in the early stages of the business relationship.
The focus of my previous articles has been about how leveraging a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool can assist with simplifying Sales, Marketing, and Services processes.  The latest edition of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, 2016 and the Online version, has included a survey maker as a new preview feature.  At the time, it can be tested and used in a non-production environment.  The full release should be available in the next couple of months.  If your organization is already using Dynamics CRM and contemplating the use of surveys to improve the customer experience?  Now is a good opportunity to try it out and see how easy it is to create a custom survey with your company’s branding.  To improve user accessibility, it’s been optimized so a survey can be taken on a phone, tablet, or computer.  Your Services team will gain more customer insight because they will be able to view customer feedback history as they resolve a service case.  As mentioned earlier, the survey information can be translated into dashboards for better visualization.  Surveys are just another way of augmenting the capabilities of your Sales, Marketing, and Services teams.

Take this quick survey to let us know if you currently use surveys

 

 

As always, I encourage you to reach out to me to discuss these topics in deeper detail. I hope you enjoyed and found this week’s article informative. If you’re interested in some how-to related CRM material, check out blogs by my colleague Ben Ward here. Till next time…

About the author:

Will has over 16 years of experience in business development, team management, and project management. Will has worked at Managed Solution for over four years and is currently advising businesses on best CRM practices and implementations. Will’s focus is on process improvement and analytics specializing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Will is a Microsoft Certified Professional, with certifications in Presales Technical Specialist – Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, Sales Specialist- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Application, Sales Specialist- Office 365, Sales Specialist- SMB Infrastructure and Sales Specialist- Datacenter.
Other articles by Will Marchesano:
For information on deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM in your organization, please call us at 800-257-0691.

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