Don't Assume You Know What the Customer Wants

Last week I got a one-word inquiry from my website.  It read, "Help!"  That's it.  Just "help" and the person's name, email, and phone number in the rest of the form.  I figured I should call this person right away since she was in such dire need.  I assumed that business must be really bad, so bad that she might be in imminent danger of going under. So I put on my red consultant's cape and gave her call.

When I got the woman on the phone I learned that she was fine.  As a matter of fact she's quite profitable.  When I asked her about the "Help" message she laughed and said that when she was sending me the form she felt overwhelmed and distilled all of her thoughts and emotions down to a single word.  All of my pre-call assumptions were incorrect.  During the call I learned that she wanted help on being a stronger manager and leader. 

After we spoke I got thinking about how often I assume what people need or what they're thinking before even talking with them. It's just not usually as obvious as this example. I must think I'm Carnac the Magnificent or something. (Those under 35 or so might have to Google that one.)

How about you?  How often do you assume you know what your customer needs or what they're thinking?  I bet it's more often than you think.  I encourage you to listen intently to your customers and employees today to find out what their "Help" really means.

Comments

[multichannelthinking.com]

Nice post, particularly the point you make in the last paragraph. It's amazing how often businesses create offerings simply by assuming what their customers want, without ever actually talking to them. Working in the field of customer-centricity and user-centred design, I'm often amazed at how often the voice of the customer comes as a revelation to clients. You'd imagine that this would be the first thing businesses would worry about! Anyway, I recently wrote a post on this topic so thought you might find it interesting... "Everything is perfect until people get involved!" (http://multichannelthinking.blogspot.com/2008/09/everything-is-perfect-until-people-get.html)

Regards

Rizwan
(http://multichannelthinking.blogspot.com)