What Are Your Customers Saying About You?

Last week Nevin Nolder of BrandCat gave a 5-7 minute speech to my Toastmasters Group. His presentation called. “Raving Fans,” was based on the 1993 book by the same name. The authors, Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles outline three main themes necessary to win Raving Fans for any business.

The book sold over a million copies, but I fear the messages within may have been lost in the intervening years. At least for many local merchants and businesses who do not have marketing departments.

Now I understand that when you are a small business, you need to be in charge of everything and that is certainly a challenge. But those who do learn the tricks of the trade to generate “Raving Fans” are the businesses that stand the best chance to grow to the point where they afford a marketing department to spur yet additional growth.

If you haven’t read Raving Fans, it is probably available through your local library. It’s short and a quick read. The concepts, basic and strong. [or here on Amazon: Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service ]

My purpose here is not to recap the entire book, but to focus on one of the key thoughts in the book. That of listening to your customer.

If you are to have Raving Fans as customers, you need to understand their needs and deliver it.

Now as the book points out, getting that feedback from customers can be challenging.

You may ask a customer how they liked something and get back, “Fine.” as an answer.

Fine may seem okay, but it is not “Excellent.”

Fine is So-so.

So – so is the bane of business. So-so today, is as likely to be so-so at your competitors tomorrow.

The reason I am writing this is because I sense most businesses tend not to ask how they are doing at all. Or just rarely. And certainly not systematically.

Sometimes I think they are afraid of what they may hear. I hope not.

Getting feedback on how your business is doing is essential.

Getting feedback on how your employees are doing is pragmatic.

Particularly if you then use that information to improve your product offerings and service and to train employees to be more effective in their interactions with your customers.

When you learn to do this, you are well on your way to learning how to generate Raving Fans.

One of the tools I use with my clients is a software system called RepPilot. It has a number of features, but its key purpose is to help generate lots of positive online reviews from customers.

The goal is to help businesses get the raving fans they do have, to say so.

And to say it where others can see it. Ideally on Google, Yelp! or any of the many other directory sites that post reviews online.

That is the part of the RepPilot system most people get fired up about. But for my money, the hidden value is in the negative or less than “Raving” comments less satisfied customers leave.

The beauty of the RepPilot system is that it channels these “uncomplimentary” comments directly to the business owner and helps keep them off the review sites. Many owners like this as well. It tends to increase their overall “Star” ranking, when poorer comments are redirected off the review sites.

The true value is in understanding where and what you may need to fix in your business. This listening is key. But only if it is followed up by some doing.

A neat aspect of the system is that you can use it to monitor the results of individual employees, teams or departments. This allows you to develop a performance based way of rewarding excellent staff and a practical way of identifying training opportunities for others.

But like all systems, it must be used to have any value.

The good news is that RepPilot is simple to set up and use. Requiring as little as 15 minutes a week for many businesses.

The results can transform a business.