Why You Should Ask Your CustomersWhat They Want
Henry Ford was wrong.
“You learn so much about a business in the months before launch, but your education really begins on the day that you open the doors to customers.” — Richard Branson
A CEO excitedly informed me that they had just fulfilled an order from a large customer. It was a small order but he was confident that they would get more business from this customer.
I congratulated him and asked him to collect feedback from the customer. This point always miffed the CEO. He believed that customers don’t know what they want “because Steve Jobs said so.”
We went back and forth until I asked him to speak to the customer just to prove me wrong. After a week of dragging his feet, the CEO got someone to complete the task.
Turns out that while the company had sent the right item, it didn’t solve the customer ‘s purpose. The customer didn’t bother to inform them and instead, placed an order with another vendor. My client didn’t receive an order from the customer ever again.
Such a scenario plays out over and over again in the business world. Once sellers fulfill orders, they never hear from the customer again despite…
