New Point of View Yields Marketing Benefits

As a business owner, you are intimately familiar with your company from the perspective of an insider with a passionate interest in the service and a personal need for the venture to succeed. But have you ever wondered how your customers see your company and what you could learn if you could see through their eyes?
Good marketing is more than fancy literature and memorable ads. Every action is a form of communication, every verbal interaction is a type of advertisement, and every visual impression is a billboard. Do you know what you are communicating and how it leads your customers to think of your business? Here are five tips to see your company through your customers eyes.
Call your public phone number. How often do you dial in to the number your customers call? Or to your 800 line? If your company has more than one phone and more than one extension, you probably dial directly to the individual you need. Put yourself in the customers position and call the advertised store number. How many times does the phone ring before it is answered? What is the tone of the greeting? If you get a recorded message or are put on hold, how repetitive, annoying or understandable is the recording? Can you leave a message without being cut off? If you leave your number without identifying yourself as the boss, how quickly do you get a return call?
Visit your own company web site. Sure, you know what you meant for the site to say. But if you decide to look for a specific product or service, can you find it easily without multiple clicks and dead links? Is the site easy to navigate? Is the information current? Must you scroll down to read long pages of copy? Try filling out your own interactive form. Is it easy? Supposed you email a question anonymously from your home account. Do you get a reply? How long does it take?
Walk around your parking lot. Don t park in your usual spot in the back. Park out front, where the customers park. Was it hard to find a space? Now sit in your car for a moment and look really look at your company s entrance. Is there trash in the parking lot? Does the entrance need to be painted? Are there weeds around the bushes? How about your signage is it freshly painted and well lit? Does the overall impression say thriving business or barely scraping by?
Try to buy your own product. If you sell a product that is sometimes purchased over the phone, call in like a regular customer and try to buy one. Is the salesperson knowledgeable and helpful? Does he or she offer suggestions of complementary products or additions? Are you informed about sales and specials? Must you be put on hold? If you have multiple locations and counter staff who may not recognize you, stroll in one day and be a customer. See how long you wait for service, and how friendly the employees are.
Go talk to your front-line people. You ve played undercover detective long enough. Now it s time to do some management by walking around. Go to the people who deal directly with your customers the sales clerks, repair staff, maintenance people and customer service reps. Talk to your telemarketing people the ones with the headsets, not the managers and the folks on the loading docks. Ask them what they hear from the customers and then listen. They know if people grumble about poor service or return products that don t work. They know about vendors who deliver late and inaccurately and thus delay customer orders. You can learn a wealth of information from the folks who see your customers every day.
If you find areas for improvement, avoid a punitive tone and explore the reasons for the problem. Approach what you learn in a positive way and ask your front-line people to help devise workable solutions that get buy-in and raise pride in the job.
Find out what you are really communicating about your company by seeing through your customers eyes.
Gail Z. Martin owns DreamSpinner Communications and helps companies in the U.S. and Canada tell the Real Story of their business through exceptional writing and marketing. Gail has an MBA in marketing and over 20 years of corporate and non-profit experience at senior executive levels. She leads webinars and teleseminars for organizations and professional associations on marketing topics, and she is the author of The Summoner and The Blood King novels in the Chronicles of the Necromancer fantasy adventure series.
Sign up for a FREE email mini course, FREE marketing conference call and a FREE teleseminar on Telling Your Real Story, at http://www.DreamSpinnerCommunications.com. Find out more about Gail s books at http://www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com. Contact Gail at gail@dreamspinnercommunications.com to start telling the Real Story of your business.



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