In our professional life, we spend most of our time embedded in our business, so when it comes to decision making, it can be challenging to consider a broader vision.
How do you ensure you’re making the most informed business decisions? Market feedback is imperative.
Market feedback is a critical tool that supports organizations to drive decision-making at a higher level, based on what clients see as value and what they see as challenging in working with a business.
The process of gathering information about client perceptions of your business should inform how management focuses growth. Making good choices starts with full comprehension of what clients value and how your services, products, or processes can better align with those needs.
Larger, more structured organizations typically build research and client feedback tools into their annual processes to ensure business planning captures improvement of the client experience. Smaller organizations however, don’t often have feedback processes in place and may view this as complex, arduous or time-consuming.
Using a third-party provider can help to mitigate resourcing or capacity challenges, while providing clients with an anonymous opportunity to share perceptions.
Here are four primary reasons for soliciting market feedback:
- Capture new ideas to improve products and services – understanding how clients view your strengths and weaknesses helps to create a streamlined method of connecting with them, as well as gathering ideas they may have for continuous improvement of your products, services, or processes.
- Create opportunities for addressing concerns – opening impartial communication lines helps clients to share challenging feedback. Typically, clients who have negative feedback do not share it, and if they do, it is after they have made the decision to leave. Consistent feedback opportunities support in client retention by providing real-time, ongoing adjustments to service.
- Build trust by reconnecting with clients – the simple act of asking for feedback elevates client perception about their own value to your organization and creates deeper connections. Strong client relationships help maintain client loyalty and can create referral champions in those clients.
- Collect data and measure client satisfaction – gathering market feedback helps to create benchmarks for growth through the collection of data, particularly around client satisfaction. Understanding where your organization stands from a trust and referral perspective at a given point in time will demonstrate when there has been growth.
Setting up a process for gathering market feedback can be simple yet incredibly impactful in making business decisions that relate to your clients.
Are you looking for support with market feedback? At Incite, we delve into client’s market to validate assumptions, identity areas for improvement, and uncover key observations to support organizational decision making. Connect with us to learn more about how market feedback can help your organization.
