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Do You Know What Your Customers Don't Know?

questionandreannaThis is the question that every business asks themselves (or should) – What do our customers not know?  It is vitally important to know the answer to this question because that is the very information you need to have on your website and in your brochures.  Potential Customers come to your website to get the answer to their questions.

The hard part is that the question is not the same for everyone.  But there are some easy ways to find out what customers want to know.  Most obvious and easy is just to ask them.  Much of this information is also already known by employees of your company.  Anyone who takes sales or support calls will have information about what customers have questions about.

Helping customers answer their questions will lead to higher customer satisfaction and an improved sales process, plus provide you with better content on your website and brochures.

(photo by Andreanna @ Flickr CC)

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Take the Time to Connect with Your Customers

dotserixAfter dropping my daughter off at school this morning, I stopped by the local bagel shop.

“Sausage, egg and cheese on wheat.  Salt bagel, double toasted, extra cream cheese. Coffee refill, please.”

“Do you have a daughter who goes to school?”

“Yes, she’s seven.”

“And your husband has a beard?”

“Yup.”

“Tell him I said hi.  I recognized this bagel must be for him from the extra toasting, extra cream cheese.”

The bagel shop owner took an extra few seconds to connect with me on a more personal level than just saying hi.  Not only did I mention this exchange to my husband, but it also struck me as important enough to blog about.  In this tight economic times, spending a few extra seconds connecting with your customers, remembering an extra little personal detail, can go along way to providing you with good referrals and future business.  All it takes are a few extra seconds and bit of effort to connect the dots.

(photo by erix! @ Flickr CC)

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Are your FAQs Questions your Customers Actually Ask Frequently?

question-bastWhen was the last time you went to a website looking for some information about a product or service?  Did they have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)?  Was the information you were looking for actually there?  A lot of times FAQs are only marketing driven – trying to cover any doubts a customer may have about purchasing a product.  But there is a real opportunity to provide useful information for your customers by providing answers to questions they actually ask frequently.

Obviously listening to your customers is one way to find out what types of questions they may have – and the best way –  support and sales people often are a good source within your company.  Another source of information is the search functionality on your website (if you have one).  What searches are people performing on your website?  Those may be the types of questions that are worthwhile to provide answers for (and make easy to find).

If you don’t have search on your website, or don’t have a good way to tell what people are searching for (both I would recommend remedying), take a look at the searches (keywords) that people use to come to your site from outside search engines.  This is information that the search engines feel you are good at answering, so it may be a good idea to make sure your answers are well rounded and provide all the information your customers (or potential customers) need.

The best source of FAQs really should be your customers.  Provide contact forms and periodically poll your customers (both in-person and online), to make sure you really do have all their frequently asked questions answered. By providing FAQs that your customers actually need, you’ll provide more support information for current customers and more purchasing information for potential customers.

(photo by -bast- @ Flickr CC)

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