Listening to customers

Knowing the important of listening to customers can make a big difference in how you are seen by the customers.

Recently we were attending a conference and there were quite a few issues with regards to registration and the app that the conference was using to plan your agenda. I was fortunate to be able to express some of my frustration with the registration progress to someone from within the company. What I didn’t expect was the outcome of that conversation.

The outcome after the conference was an email from a vice president wanting to talk to me to discuss some of the issues that I had. Now the organization that I am talking about is not a small one location company but a multi-national company which a lot of locations world wide as well as lots of clients, which we are one of them. The email was a touch base and a question to actually talk to me so that they could hear about my issues without anyone else translating them. I had no problem accepting this request and am happy that I did accept it.

The conversation took place and I am happy that he was willing to listen to my issues and help explain why some of them actually happened. I was also provided with some follow up on one of the major issues and am happy that it was handled as quickly as it was. Now the rest of the issues that I talked to him about are things that can be improved moving forward and I hope that they are. The end of this conversation was a promise by him to follow up with me again once he has some more information. I appreciated the time he took to listen and the promise of following up with how some of the issues will be addressed moving forward.

Now what I have promised to do is if needed is to test both the registration and the app for next year to ensure that some of the issues that I pointed out have been resolved and the system is working better. I am glad that this organization did want to list to an end user / customer because I will now favourable recommend them as a software provided and know that they really do listen.

Listening to the customers can really make a difference on how you as an organization will be seen. Not everyone that is unhappy will provide the feedback but when they do make sure you take the time to listen and inquiry about the issue because if one person has had the problem and is complaining about it, how many have had the same issue and are just frustrated and maybe left.