When I think about obtaining customer feedback, the greatest concern I have is about selecting the right group of customers to target. Sometimes a company can spend too much time with more experienced customers, who are “growing out” of the franchise, than they do with the newer generation of customers. This is because (1) the company has more information (and often closer relationships) with longer tenure customers, and (2) newer customers, particularly in 2009, tell companies lots of information that the company does not want to hear. Social networks, lack of brand preference, more pricing transparency — they are all messages that most companies are not equipped to hear yet, yet alone act on.

Abercrombie, Jack Daniels, Phonak — all companies that faced the pressures of an aging customer base. If those companies had stayed “in the core” they might be gone today.

How do you think about target customer selection? How can you make sure to hear from customers who might not tell you what you want to hear?

When I think about obtaining customer feedback, the greatest concern I have is about selecting the right group of customers to target. Sometimes a company can spend too much time with more experienced customers, who are “growing out” of the franchise, than they do with the newer generation of customers. This is because (1) the company has more information (and often closer relationships) with longer tenure customers, and (2) newer customers, particularly in 2009, tell companies lots of information that the company does not want to hear. Social networks, lack of brand preference, more pricing transparency — they are all messages that most companies are not equipped to hear yet, yet alone act on.

Abercrombie, Jack Daniels, Phonak — all companies that faced the pressures of an aging customer base. If those companies had stayed “in the core” they might be gone today.

How do you think about target customer selection? How can you make sure to hear from customers who might not tell you what you want to hear?

When I think about obtaining customer feedback, the greatest concern I have is about selecting the right group of customers to target. Sometimes a company can spend too much time with more experienced customers, who are “growing out” of the franchise, than they do with the newer generation of customers. This is because (1) the company has more information (and often closer relationships) with longer tenure customers, and (2) newer customers, particularly in 2009, tell companies lots of information that the company does not want to hear. Social networks, lack of brand preference, more pricing transparency — they are all messages that most companies are not equipped to hear yet, yet alone act on.

Abercrombie, Jack Daniels, Phonak — all companies that faced the pressures of an aging customer base. If those companies had stayed “in the core” they might be gone today.

How do you think about target customer selection? How can you make sure to hear from customers who might not tell you what you want to hear?

ML

ML

The setup is easy: On your Dashboard, find “Customize” in the right hand navigation. In the top menu, select “Services” where you can select “Automatically import my RSS feed as Link with summary”, add your RSS feed, that's it.