Don’t guess what your customers want

Sometimes the best advice is free. The key ingredient to successful market research is to get as close as possible to the customer. With Internet and email it is now possible to get even closer to your clients. If your clients are so “close” to you, why not get them to do some work for you?

Your customer is the most reliable source of information at your disposal, and it is free. “Quality purpose recordings” are used to train personnel; on-line surveys and polls are used to collect valuable information directly from the targeted market.
If you collect information with the intention to improve the quality of your service your clients will certainly not have any problems giving you a piece of their minds.

You cannot get close to the consumer with aggregated data. Making one-to-one contact with a few clients will provide valuable, accurate data that cannot be matched by aggregated data.

If you do not have time to talk to your clients you better make time. You need to get rid of the “average” data and discover the real consumer. If you “make” time for your customers your customers will make more time for your business. In the process of communicating with your clients, your clients become part of the product development process. You will discover new segments and provide products and services that were actually developed by your clients.