Friday 2nd August, 2024
TOP TIPS for Customer Audits.
When designing a sales and marketing campaign, the first step is often creating your customer avatar, i.e. What does your perfect customer look like? Once identified, we attempt to put ourselves in their position and try to predict what they need and respond to.
Having performed this task multiple times, this is not easy! Once the campaign has been designed it is important to monitor and adapt the plan to ensure its success. Surely the easiest way to do this is to ask by conducting a customer audit!
TOP TIP 1 – How are you performing?
The perfect starting point to any audit is to ask how your company is currently performing. By using open questions (questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no), ascertain what the customer thinks of your company and the product or service you deliver.
But why do I need to do this?
My sales are much higher than last year. I have previously written about how important it is to watch the numbers, but without context they can be deceiving.
For example, if you currently have a unique product offering that meets your customer avatar’s needs then you could assume that sales will increase. But what if this is a reluctant purchase or your customer service is lousy? Any new competition, may be in a position to take a portion of this business away.
Done correctly, auditing your customers should provide you with valuable information that will help correct any shortfalls.
TOP TIP 2 – What do your customers need?
In TOP TIP 1 we outlined the importance of identifying your customer avatar and how this can influence your business. The second tip, during a customer audit, is to ask what they need.
When we develop a sales and/or marketing strategy, we are making assumptions about our customers. This strategy is often developed in the previous year and as we have seen, situations can change very quickly and our strategy can be easily outdated.
A customer’s need is what drives future sales. Who is in a better position to answer this question, you in your planning meetings some time ago or the customer? A customer that tells you what they need is telling you what they are going to buy next.
Done correctly, auditing your customers should provide you with valuable information that will help you ensure that your product or service meets your customers’ needs.
TOP TIP 3 – What are your customers challenges?
In the earlier TOP TIPS we asked customers how we are performing and what they need. Both of these questions are the important first steps to a customer audit but how do we gain more understanding of our actual customer not just an imaginary customer avatar.
Asking, what are their challenges, is an wide open question that could be answered in so many ways. This information is invaluable as it can provide insight into what you could offer next.
As discussed in TOP TIP 2, future sales come from customer needs. Their current challenges are a snapshot view into what may make their life easier and ultimately lead to a need and more future sales.
Done correctly, auditing your customers should provide you with valuable information that will help you ensure that your future products or services offer help with today’s challenges.
TOP TIP 4 – Show customers that you care
The key to any relationship is two-way communication, or so my wife tells me! In business it is very easy to fall in to the trap of a one way relationship. Once established, the relationship is often fed by computer talking to computer, a purchase order sent one way followed by an invoice in the other.
It doesn’t matter what secured this customer in the past, what is important is the they feel that you are still the company of choice. By conducting a customer audit you are dedicating time to better understand their business and building the two way relationship. This gives the impression that both companies are on the same side.
Creating this relationship at a high level can assist in many ways. It can assist when negotiating new contracts, or when employees leave. The important thing, again according to my wife, is that both parties feel heard and actions are taken to rectify any shortfalls.
TOP TIP 5 – Internal or external auditing?
If you have read the earlier TOP TIPS then hopefully you agree with the importance of auditing your customers opinions. The next question is whether to conduct this audit internally or ask an external professional to assist you. Like everything, there are pros and cons of both.
An internal audit will be cheaper and will provide the information straight away, giving the opportunity to rectify smaller issues immediately, however it can be time consuming, lost in day to day activities and often some customers can be reluctant to give honest feedback.
Whilst an external customer audit has a cost, professional auditors, who can lead a customer through a series of question will be able to identify trends, highlight future opportunities and extract more “brutal fact” information without the fear of upsetting the current relationship.
If you would like any assistance conducting a customer audit, why not reach out for a no obligation chat at info@fbsconsulting.com.au or phone 0468 794 040. Also, if you enjoyed this blog there is more to be found at our Latest Blog Pages.
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