Category Archives: Customer Satisfaction

More Lessons Learned Starting a Business

A while ago I wrote about starting my own small business. It’s a really small business. Just me in the garage evenings and occasionally on the weekend. It’s now about eight weeks in and it might be a good time to go through some of the simple lessons that I have learned and, in some cases, relearned during this process. I have to admit that many things I knew, learned before and even suspected, still hold true.

The first thing that was reinforced was the decision as to whether or not this was to be a real business, or what I would call a “hobby”. The baseline for this decision is how Cash Flow is treated. A hobby is something where you are aware of your expenses, but do not fully track them, as the difference between personal and business expenses can be somewhat blurry. In a hobby you know you are spending the money, but you’re not so worried about it as it has an entertainment value as opposed to a baseline for profitability.

For the business, I chose the tactic of keeping all receipts and tracking them (and revenues) via a spreadsheet. I set aside my initial cash investment for equipment (saws, sanders, grinders, etc.), as well as the initial payments for the raw materials that I would need to make the product. I viewed this as my Class “A” funding, to use entrepreneurial lingo. I didn’t want to have to go back to my investor (me) and explain to myself how my initial business case was flawed, if I in fact ran out of cash.

Fortunately, actually not fortunately, it was according to plan – orders did start to come in quickly.

Now came the balancing act of trying to grow. That meant ramping up production, which in this case meant making a couple more game boards than I actually needed each week, in order to build a little inventory. It is October, and the gift giving season will be here soon. It does take some time to build the products, and I am planning on a continued sales ramp through the end of the quarter. I would like to have some products on hand to turn into revenue as quickly as possible.

I don’t however have the ready cash, as part of my plan, to be able to just start producing fully in anticipation of such demand. Such is the balancing associated with cash flow. How much can you spend and how quickly can you get it back.

Another topic was quality. As I continue to produce the boards, I get better at it. I not only get better, I also get faster. I have gained confidence. I began to think I had it figured out. It took one inferior product produced to bring me back down to reality.

I am my own best, or in this case worst critic when it comes to what I produce. If it is not good enough for me, then it doesn’t get sold or shipped to a customer. Those resources, time and materials spent on making that inferior product were wasted. I will not get them back. It brought home the cost of quality, or in this case non-quality very quickly.

Speaking of manufacturing, as I mentioned I continue to learn how to manufacture better and faster. The old adage “practice makes perfect” does have some application here. I have gotten faster and more accurate at the measurement and cutting aspects of the process. I have learned that it is faster and easier to cut, and recut a straight line, than it is to try and sand a straight line. I have refined, changed and in some cased reduced the amount of raw materials required to manufacture. As might be expected it has had a beneficial effect on my bottom line.

As an aside, I have also learned that as soon as you bend what was once a straight piece of metal, it will never be straight again, no matter how long or hard you work at straightening it. Just a tip for those who may also decide to try and work with metals.

The value of having some inventory, as opposed to only starting to build when an order came in has shown its value. I have already mentioned the balancing act between tying up a lot of cash in inventory versus having it available for other expenditures. But it turns out that customers are actually pleased when they get their desired product faster than when it is promised to them. I recently had my first return customer (he originally bought a small board, and he came back to buy a large one). He mentioned that it was both product quality and the fast shipment that brought him back.

Imagine that.

Next comes looking for opportunities to expand both the market for the existing products and looking for new types of products to create. As I said, I am making metal game boards (and game pieces) for Chess, Checkers, Go, Pente and the like games. They seem to be pretty well accepted, at least initially by my go to market channels (in this case on-line purchasing sites eBay and Etsy).

The questions are:

Are there other board games that may be readily adapted to a metal platform?

And

Are there other channels to market for the existing and potentially new metal boards?

I am currently working on a potential backgammon board as a product platform expansion. Backgammon is an older and widely played game. I will not make many boards to start as it will be a much more involved manufacturing process (involving much more difficult angle cuts as opposed to the current right angles I use now). It may actually require outsourcing to a machine or cutting shop, at least initially to get it done. I will see how this goes.

As to expanding channels to market, on-line still appears the way to go for now. It continues to provide the broadest market coverage, while still providing the lowest investment associated with merchant systems and the like. I will continue to look at other artisan and mercantile type sites to see what it may cost to put my products up on those sites. That way I will be able (hopefully) to continue to expand the number of people who can see and purchase my products.

I have looked into attending trade and other types of craft shows, as another channel to market. These may be viable channels in the future, but I am not so sure right now. Almost all of these events require a registration fee of some type. Applying this fee against the margin I get from each product sale tells me how many boards I must sell during the course of the show (usually two days over a weekend) in order to just break even. It also means that I would have to probably invest a little more heavily in inventory as customers who attend these shows normally like to go home with the products that they buy at these shows. Not having available product to deliver would probably limit sales success here.

Most importantly, the weather is still nice, and I would like to golf at least once on the weekends as I continue to work at my chosen career during the week. Once the weather changes and it begins to get a little colder and a little less desirable to play golf, I will probably revisit the trade and craft show decision.

Did I mention that priorities are a must when starting your own business?

Finally, I come to marketing. I have the website up. It can be viewed at https://metalgames.biz/. I have the purchase and merchant systems working on Etsy at https://www.etsy.com/shop/MetalGames?ref=seller-platform-mcnav. I have started to get customer reviews (all positive so far) and am making sure that they are visible on both sites.

The next step was to create a site and presence on Facebook. It seems to be the granddaddy of all social networks at this point. Again, this is a relatively simple process. Facebook has all the required information to quickly lead you through how to set up a page for a business. Mine can be viewed at fb.me/MetalEnterprises. It seems that “Metal Games” was already taken by someone. Such is life.

I am looking into other media sites such as pinterest. I was actually just out there looking and trying to quickly understand their process and methodologies for getting “pins” out there. I will see if I can get that social media capability up and working in the next day or so.

Several things are similar for a one-person garage shop and a ten-thousand-person multi-national company. Knowing where your cash is and how quickly you can get back what you have spent dictates what your cash flow is. Profitability is great and will ultimately dictate longer term success, but cash flow is what allows you to keep the doors open. Product quality is a premium. “Good Enough” is not anywhere near good enough. Set your personal thresholds high and do not compromise. It matters. Continuing to seek out new customers and being as responsive as is possible to those you find will always be the keystone for business success.

And, as is the case for me at Metal Games (as in most of the work I do) have fun.

Customer Wants

Sometimes, events in the universe just conspire to align themselves in such a way that a topic to write about becomes painfully self-evident. Such is what has happened over the last little period of time for me. I was the recipient of several surveys asking me as a customer, what I wanted. I also had the opportunity to read several surveys that had asked other types of customers what they wanted. These current events brought back recollections of past events that had already conveyed this topic into such clarity some time ago for me. I am of course talking about talking to customers, and more specifically what customers want.

What customers want is usually viewed as the holy grail of business conduct. If you can figure out what they want, you can create a product or service that will satisfy their desire. You can become famous and respected as a scion of business. You can be somebody.

One of the most popular methods for finding out what customers want is through the afore mentioned surveys. Another is industry forums and workshops. Yet another is actually talking to them face to face and just asking them. As I mentioned, I have recently had the opportunity to both read about and to some extent participate in these types of customer interactions. People had gone out, identified the customers, and asked them what they wanted. And lo and behold, they told us.

We now knew what they wanted. We could design and build the future around these responses. We had the information. We had the answers. We were off and running.

Not so fast.

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was once responsible for a business unit within a company. I had taken the adage to heart. I had created a users’ group so that I could talk directly to my customers and understand what they wanted as well as what was dissatisfying them. It worked great, for a while.

Most of the time the problems, issues and requests that we discussed were well known to both groups, the company as well as the users. We prioritized them, focused our abilities, and instead of trying to solve them all at once, we solved a few at a time and made measurable progress. As we took the major issues and dissatisfiers off the list, they were eventually replaced with more and more arcane topics. They were still dissatisfiers, but not on the same level as those that we had already dealt with. Soon we found ourselves starting to try and prioritize and work on the arcane as opposed to the well-defined issues.

We surveyed the customers to try and understand “what they wanted”. They were not shy. We hadn’t put any limitations on what their responses could be, so they told us what they wanted. They had gone through a prolonged period of getting many of the products and issue resolutions that they were looking for, so their expectations were high regarding what our responses would be.

The subtle change that had occurred was that we were now specifically discussing things that they wanted, where in the past we had been working on topics that needed to be worked or corrected. These were now “want” to haves, as opposed to “have” to have topics. There is a different commercial model when it comes to correcting issues or providing already committed functionalities, then there is when it comes to fulfilling customer wants and desires.

We started discussing the parameters for the commercial model associated with fulfilling their desires. We started to ask them for money in order for us to deliver what they wanted. What they wanted was so arcane, and technically complicated, they we started asking for a lot of money.

The next users group meeting came along, and naturally, this issue was a major topic of discussion. The customers were unhappy. They were dissatisfied. They were not getting what they wanted. It came time to have “the talk” with them individually, and as a user group in general.

We set up the session and cleared the agenda. We started off by making sure that we had in fact properly scoped and defined the specific desired capability that they said they wanted. We wanted to make sure that we were answering and addressing the proper topic. We had.

We then asked the question that hence forth has always accompanied any time in the future that that I have asked a customer what they wanted. We asked:

“Are you willing to pay for what you want?”

It is easy for anyone, customers included, to come up with a list of things that they want. The issue here is always two-fold: Are you willing to pay for it? And, do you have enough money to pay for it?

Usually when customers are surveyed about needs, wants, desires, there is little in the way of a perceived economic model accompanying these questions. Wants invariably well exceed available budgets and the ability to purchase these wants. The different relative costs associated with the various desires can have a significant effect on the priority with which the customer views them.

A good example would be a survey about cars. You can be asked what kind of car you would want. You may “want” an exotic super-car. They are nice cars. You may not have enough money on hand, nor the desire to re-mortgage your house in order to buy an exotic super-car. Even though you may want one, you may not be willing to pay what it costs to buy one.

Such is the issue we ran into way back when. We asked only about “wants”. Such is the issue that seems to continue to plague more recent industry survey and customer communications.

Getting back to my historical lesson, most of the customers agreed that they would be willing to pay something for their desired functionality. It is interesting to note here that I said “most”. There were some that were not. I think by now you know where I will be going with this.

I then shared what the order of magnitude estimate was for the company to develop the desired capability and explained that even though it might be contrary to common opinion, we were a “for profit” organization. The stockholders were funny that way, and sort of insisted on it. Based on the business case and the relative number of interested customers, we then shared an order of magnitude individual customer price for the desired capability, based on the assumption that all interested customers would purchase it at the estimated price.

The majority of the customers indicated that they were not interested in the capability at the estimated price. We then looked at the remaining customers and indicated that their price would go up in proportion to the number of customers that were no longer interested in purchasing the capability.

The result of the discussion was that we publicly addressed the dissatisfier and quantified to the customer what it would cost them to be satisfied, and then mutually decided that we would not develop and supply the customer desired functionality. We would instead work with them to see if there were work-arounds or other methods of addressing the desired functionality.

During the course of this interaction it became clear that what customers want is indeed an important aspect of the process of creating customer satisfaction. You have to know what they want. Many times, it is within your ability to provide it, and to provide in such a way or at such a price point that it makes sense for all involved. However, as technology has evolved, and as budgets continue to tighten, sometimes the usual economic model will not work.

In today’s business climate, any time that you are looking to have interactions with customers regarding “what they want” as a method of gaging which products to create or which strategic directions to pursue, it will probably be in everyone’s best interest to include questions regarding if  that customer would be willing to purchase that desired product or functionality, and what specifically (at lease to a rounded order of magnitude) what they would be willing to pay for it.

All customers have a list of wants and desires. If you only ask them about those wants and desires you may find yourself trying to design and build products, services and functionalities that customers may be unwilling to purchase, even though they may want them. I think the number of people that may want an exotic super-car is far greater than the number of people that are actually willing to pay what it costs to buy one. I’m pretty sure about this because as I drive around in my distinctly non-exotic super-car, I see so many others driving around in their non-exotic super-cars.

As an aside I can’t believe that so many other people actually wanted all those minivans that they are driving around in. Perhaps that will be something to analyze in a future edition.

I think that we all need to be aware of what customers want. I also think that unless we normalize these wants with information regarding which wants they are willing to pay for, and how much they might be willing to pay for each one, we can lead ourselves into some difficult business situations.

When Metrics Fail

It has long been known in business that you should “Inspect what you expect”. This basically means that if you want to achieve a certain goal, or engender a specific behavior, you need to establish metrics associated with that objective. Then you need to monitor and measure the progress toward that objective.

After all, it has also been known in business that “Data is your friend”. The idea of gathering unbiased information regarding the progress toward the business goals and objectives has also been acknowledged as a path to success.

So, if you have the metrics, and you have the data, everything should be great, right?

Not so fast.

In these days of quantifiable objectives and unbiased measurements, with customer service taking an ever-higher pedestal in the pantheon of business goals, why is it that service satisfaction seems to be taking a nose dive instead of soaring to new heights?

I think the answer is simple, and it directly relates to the first item above: Inspect what you expect. Unless businesses are very careful when they set their goals and objectives, they will incite an employee behavior to manage to the metrics, instead of the business objectives. To illustrate this behavior and resulting customer satisfaction failure, I will regale you with my own personal travails though the metrics mess.

Since the advent of mobile phones, I think it is safe to say that just about every business person has had a business mobile phone. Across this mobile communications time-scape I have had the bad fortune to break exactly one of my business phones, to the point of requiring a replacement phone.

Personally, I think this is a pretty good record. I know of several of my colleagues across this period that are well into double digits on the number of phones they have broken and replaced.

In any event once broken, I then started the process of trying to get a replacement phone.

As with most organizations, there was a corporate “Help” line available to call should there be a connectivity issue. I called it. They answered right away. I asked my questions regarding where to go to start the replacement phone process. They directed me to the appropriate organizational web site.

Up to this point, this has been a really good service experience.

Time passed and I then accessed the replacement program and filled out the then required information and submitted it. I got an error message. It didn’t tell me what was wrong with my phone replacement application, only that it was wrong. I searched the rest of the page and found a help number (different from the first help number) and called.

They took my information and opened a trouble ticket, and told me they would get back to me.

Fifteen minutes later I received an email providing another URL directing me to another tool for phone replacements, and that since they could not do anything else, they had closed my trouble ticket.

Time passed and I then went to the new location, filled out another form and requested a replacement phone. Now I received a different error message, but again, no information on how to resolve the error. I again searched the rest of the page and found a help number (different from the first help number, and the second help number) and called.

They too took my information and opened a trouble ticket, and told me they would get back to me.

Another short time later I received another email providing the URL of the original Help line directing me to talk with them since they were actually in mid-conversion of the on-line business phone procurement tool and that since they could not do anything else, they had closed my trouble ticket.

As you might guess, my opinion of the quality of the service experience was eroding quickly.

Time continued to pass and I then re-called the original Help number and informed them of the circular cycle I had just been through, and again asked for their help. They said that they would look into it and then opened yet another trouble ticket.

Again as you might guess, I soon received another email confirming that there was indeed a conversion going on within the systems and that I would have to wait until it was over to order a replacement telephone, and that since they could not do anything else, they had closed my trouble ticket.

Now, I will get to the resolution of this phone replacement story in a little bit, but I am using it here to illustrate the issue that metrics can create. It was quite obvious that the metric that mattered most to the “Help” entities was how quickly they closed the trouble ticket once it was opened.

This metric mattered so much in their requirement set that it was all they focused on. I had opened multiple trouble tickets for the exact same issue, with multiple entities, some of them multiple times. They had closed every one of the tickets that I had opened quickly and efficiently.

And after all that time and effort, I still didn’t have a replacement phone. They had not solved my problem. Their metrics probably looked great. Their customer satisfaction, at least in my particular instance was close to non-existent.

Someone had obviously associated rapid closure of trouble tickets with increased customer satisfaction. In light of this correlation, they created a set of objectives and accompanying metrics around this topic. Goals were set. And associated behaviors were adjusted to this new arrangement. The tickets were indeed closed quickly.

And it was obvious that they learned that “usually” closing a trouble ticket quickly resulted in increased customer satisfaction. Closing multiple trouble tickets for the same issue quickly, but not solving the underlying issue resulted in the exact opposite. I was not anywhere close to satisfied.

By the way, I could not make this story up. This actually did happen to me some time back. It is kind of humorous in retrospect, however at the time I was not especially amused.

Getting back the resolution about how I eventually got a replacement phone, when everyone thought that they had done their job, yet there was no method for me to get a phone.

Most companies when they think they have done a good job like to issue customer surveys, just to make sure that they have done a good job. This sort of customer feedback looks good when it comes time to report on the group’s performance at the end of the year.

They sent me a customer satisfaction survey.

They asked that since all my tickets were closed so quickly if I was nearly as delighted as they thought I should be.

I told them “no”, and graded them “Zero” out of five on every metric, and submitted it. I in effect told them they stunk.

I like to think that once my survey hit their inbox with such low scores, that something akin to the “red button” was hit (along the lines of the one in the movie “Ghostbusters” – the first one, not the sequel) where the alarm rings and everyone comes running.

Within a couple of hours of sending it in, I received a call from the help group manager. He asked if he could set up a call to understand what my issues were. I agreed, but only if he brought in the other two help groups I had unsuccessfully interfaced with as well. He said he would.

Believe it or not, weeks had passed since I started the process of trying to replace my phone. What should have been a relatively simple exercise had now stretched out to the point where I was have a conference call with more than a dozen people who were trying to understand how I could be so wrong about the quality of their support services.

During the call I did agree with all of them that they had indeed closed all the trouble tickets I had opened quite promptly. I commended them for this obviously herculean effort.

I then informed them that the objective here was for me to get a new mobile phone, not to get my trouble tickets closed so quickly. I wouldn’t have minded that they were closed so quickly, if I had in fact achieved my objective, which was to get a new phone. And at this point, as of this conference call, I still didn’t have one.

There was what I could only have described as stunned silence on the call.

The actual final solution to the issue was to have the director responsible for the company phone services, who was on the call trying to understand what went wrong with the process, to personally order a phone for me. He did, and I received it two days later.

I think I should have called him directly in the first place.

Aligning goals and the accompanying metrics can be a tricky business. Leaders need to understand that just because all of the so-called metrics have been met, doesn’t necessarily mean that all is well in the business. Metrics tend to replace the actual business goals and objectives, since it is the metrics that people usually get measured against.

Understanding the metric alignment with the organizational objectives will be crucial in avoiding those instances where the metrics indicate one thing, while reality demonstrates something entirely different. It is always good to remember that having data is good, but that metrics, if not properly understood, can fail.

Contracting Disease

It is somewhat interesting to me that you can both “catch” a disease, and you can “contract” a disease. So what is the difference? The principal difference is that catch suggests a transmittable infection (ex. You can catch a cold or the flu), while contract can refer to a wider variety of diseases, including those that are not contagious (ex. You don’t catch cancer or leukemia, you contract them). I had to look this up. I didn’t say that it was engrossingly interesting to me; I said it was only somewhat interesting to me. In the business world the equivalent would be that you don’t catch a bad deal with a customer or supplier, you contract it.

So many businesses do so many things right in the ongoing process of trying to satisfy customers, so it is truly a shame that when it comes down to consummating the relationship with the customer, in the form of a contract, that they fall short of the good contractual goal. It is almost as if the business entity gets so excited at the prospect of completing the deal that they forget to write a good contract. Contracts at their most basic are very simple: Both entities in a contract want to get something, and in return are prepared to give something. Buyers want to get products or services and in return expect to provide money, and sellers want to get money and in return are prepared to provide products or services.

Beyond this it gets complicated.

Buyers want to get more products and provide less money and sellers want to get more money and provide fewer products. Herein lies the rub. How do you make sure everyone delivers what they should and pays what they should? You create a good contract.

There are many benefits and detriments associated with the advent of contracts. The greatest detriment that I can think of is that contracts gave rise to a new species of life, commonly referred to as “lawyers”. To bring a little circular logic into play here, it is good to remember that it is very difficult to “catch” a lawyer (at anything). Invariably you must “contract” them, but if you wash your hands thoroughly afterwards, while you probably will not reduce any of your risks, you will definitely feel cleaner.

I know it sounds a little trite but contracts are definitely a necessity in business. There must be some way for both parties to enforce the agreement that they are pursuing. Promises are good, and I am sure that everyone involved is both reasonable and honorable, but it still needs to be put in writing. Understand that agreements and requirements of any type can span multiple years. During that period it is not uncommon for the people who were party to the initial deal and who may understand the reasons for what was done, to move on to other roles. At the very least there needs to be a historical record of the agreement in the form of a contract so that those who follow on both sides of the agreement have something to refer to when questions arise.

This brings us to “Contracting Disease”. This is a malady that affects many businesses and is very prevalent particularly around business deadlines or at the end of any measurement period. A measurement period is usually the end of a month, quarter or year. It is during these deadlines or end of the measurement periods where usually reasonably sane organizations will succumb to one of any number of pressures and sign what is known as a bad contract.

A bad contract is the result where for whatever reason one of the parties to the contract either temporarily or permanently seemed to lose their mind and the other party to the contract lets them.

Contracts are normally designed to balance each party’s risks against the specific values that they are to receive. The standard risks are normally associated with how much of a good or service is to be supplied, how long it will be supplied, how much is to be paid for it and when it is to be paid for. There are normally many other items to be considered in a contract, but these are the primary ones, and usually any others somehow relate to these.

Contracting Disease can strike buyers at almost any time but usually occurs when the buyer either puts themselves in a position where very few if any suppliers can fulfill their product specification requests, or they find themselves in a position where an external factor has occurred and they must obtain a good or service at almost any cost in order to remain functioning. The US government is a perfect example of the self inflicted product specification contract. Government contract specifications and processes are usually incredibly complex and are pursued by only a limited number of specialized businesses. This is the type of process that results in contracts for five hundred dollar hammers and twenty five hundred dollar toilet seats. This is not an example of “you get what you pay for”. This is an example of “you pay, and you pay a lot, for what you needlessly over specify”.

A good example of the buyer’s need situation can be seen in the oil embargo of the 1970’s here in the US. OPEC decided that the US was not their friend, needed to be taught a lesson and as a result they were not going to ship any more oil to the US. This resulted in a reduced supply of gasoline at the pumps for all consumers and anyone else who drove a car. Consumers needed gasoline so that they could continue to drive their gas-guzzling cars. Enterprising gas stations recognized this opportunity and started raising their prices for gasoline far beyond any rational level based on the newly limited supply. In short they took advantage of the situation and raised the price of gasoline to unheard of exorbitant levels, but back then they would at least clean your windshield when you filled up so it wasn’t quite so bad.

Gas stations raised their price for gasoline to far more than ONE DOLLAR per gallon during the OPEC oil embargo. Can you image the nerve of those places charging more than a dollar for gas?

This was seen as price gouging and federal laws were quickly enacted to stop the practice. However, at the time, gas buyers who wanted to drive their cars had no choice but to agree the gas station’s contract and to pay the exorbitant price if they wanted any gas.

Contracting Disease can strike sellers in a myriad of ways, but it usually boils down to the fact that the buyer for whatever reason wants the buyer’s money and will agree to almost anything the buyers’ want in order to get the money. As I noted, Contracting Disease in sellers appears to be primarily a seasonal related malady. It seems to strike at the end of each quarter and especially hard at the end of the year. It is no coincidence that these periods coincide with the end of the various financial reporting periods. It is at these times that some sellers’ drives for incremental revenue (and contracts) can reach a fevered pitch.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which side of the contract that you are on) there are no laws to protect sellers from themselves when it comes to selling their goods or services. This has to be one of the ultimate self regulating environments; the environment where the long term costs of signing a contract outweighs the short term inflows of money. When this self regulation does not occur, Contracting Disease sets in. In many markets it appears that buyers have recognized the periodic nature of sellers’ Contracting Disease and purposely try to wait until these high risk periods to negotiate and sign contracts.

When discussing Contracting Disease it is best to remember that buyers are usually protected in one form or another when it comes to the purchase (contract) of necessities and staples required for ongoing survival. Collusive or predatory practices by vendors are illegal. However Contracting Disease that results in a contract with incremental self inflicted risks and expenses associated with either the purchase of, or the sale of goods and services has no regulatory limit.

In
stead of caveat emptor (“buyer beware”) or caveat vendor (“Seller beware”), it should more accurately be Caveat Contractor.

When in Doubt….Ask


Customers are funny things. They need your product and they want your help. On the other side of the equation, you want their business. On the surface this would seem to be a relatively simple situation where the solution is obvious. You provide them the solution they want, and everyone is happy. Right?


The reality seems to be that it rarely works out that way.


My experience has been that customers know exactly what they DON’T want when they see it. They can tell you exactly where the provided solution falls short of their expectation, but only after it has been provided. By then it is too late. They are dissatisfied with the solution, and you are in recovery mode. It doesn’t matter that it is precisely what they asked for, or even demanded as part of their contract.  


Customers seem to have a very hard time defining the necessary aspects of what they want to the level where the provided solution can easily satisfy them. There is an art to getting the customer to provide you the desired, and in many instances needed information to enable you to satisfy their needs. In many instances this is because the customer is not aware of, or does not know all of the variables associated with their specific business need.


So what do you do? You start asking questions.


We have all heard the old adage: “There are no dumb questions.” This is wrong. There are an incredible number of dumb questions. If you happen to ask enough of them you can and will destroy your credibility with the customer and put your deal at risk.


On the other hand, you cannot make the customer fact finding process appear to be an interrogation. Each customer feels they are, and in most cases truly are unique. Template and check list question approaches need to be used with caution as they have a tendency to remove the individual and personal relations ship that a customer requires. It also makes them feel as though they have been “sold” to and you are now just filling out the required forms.


I recently read a book, “The Sales Messenger”, by Mary Anne Davis, where she actually addresses the art of questioning a customer. The idea was not to immediately start “selling” or interrogating, but to engage them in more of a give and take proposition. Obviously this is something all sales people want, but is much easier said than done. She did get me thinking about some of her ideas and particularly the words and approaches she uses.


Ideas such as asking your customers for “opinions” and not “decisions” as a way of creating a discussion where the customer can be induced to provide more information they may not have even known they had. We are always in a hurry to get a customer to decide if they want “this” or “that”, when it is possible that ultimately neither will end up satisfying the customer.


Opinions draw pictures, where decisions select from provided options. Unless you have all the information that has enabled you to provide the correct solution / option to that specific customers needs, the idea of looking for customer “advice”, “help” and “experience” in creating solutions for that customer can only help improve the final outcome for everyone. Asking the customer for their “beliefs” on what is important and their “priorities” on what they expect help to draw the customer deeper into the desired solution, as well as draw out the deeper information necessary to create it.


The book also brought out the negative or “fighting” words that we all use. These words have a tendency to appear when the customer’s opinion or advice does not completely match our own. When this happens we usually use words like “but…” and “however…” These words will cause contention with someone you are trying to work with.


We need to debunk another old saying here: “The customer is always right.” That is not the case. If it were, every customer would be satisfied with every purchase they have ever made. Have you ever met anyone that could say they were happy with every purchase they ever made?


Healthy contention is a good thing. It will usually result in the creation of a stronger solution. The idea is not to conflict with your customers opinion. If you believe there are aspects of the needed solution that are not reflected in your customer’s opinion, do not directly challenge them. Instead, ask them a challenging question. Get them to think about your point without conflicting with their point.


As I said, customers are funny things. I thought that the ideas in the “The Sales Messenger” on how to get the information that they need and want to give you, but may not necessarily know they have, were good. The connotation of the words that you use and the approach that you use them in are key. The creation of healthy contention versus customer conflict helps to create a stronger overall solution.


It also might end up helping make your customer more satisfied with their decision to partner with you, and more satisfied with the solution you provide them.

Start a Users Group

Communicating with customers is a key to their satisfaction and to increasing sales. It is well known that it is almost 5 times easier to sell to existing customers than it is to sell to new customers. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore obtaining new customers. You must continue to add new customers to sustain and grow the business. It means that you need to have a separate focus on each customer set.


In focusing on existing customers, one of the best ways to communicate with, and eventually sell more to them is through the creation of a “Users Group”. Creating a users group enables your customers to communicate their product and service needs, wants and desires directly to you and to other customers. If they are dissatisfied with aspects of the product, you can learn the application and desired solution. This helps build the bond with your customer and strengthens the product by identifying (and hopefully fixing) product gaps. You must be prepared to commit the necessary resources to correct any identified product issues, or this approach will not succeed. 


As with internal business teams, where you listen to and work with all business disciplines to create a cohesive solution, the users group enables you to extend this “teaming” arrangement outward to the customer. Their involvement creates ownership and buy-in on issue identification, prioritization and resolution. Their ownership and buy-in can also eventually lead to additional sales of product expansions and systems as well as references and recommendations to new customers that they should purchase your products as well.


Do not expect immediate sales increases and relationship improvements with the creation of a users group. You must be prepared to deal with any and all relationship and product issues, even those you were unaware of. However, once you get started and demonstrate your commitment to the group and their requests and product needs, they should be won over and both your sales and their satisfaction should increase.