Are you really listening? Three behaviours that can unlock your customer’s voice

Your customers are powerful. Their thoughts, their experiences, and their voice can do a lot of good for your brand – or a lot of damage. Although many brands understand that responding to customers is important for cultivating relationships, it’s easy to forget that your customer’s voice is so much bigger than that.

Exceeding your customers’ expectations means understanding their needs at every stage of the journey. For us, everything starts with your customer: by listening and reacting to them, we can delight and excite them. That’s why we want to help brands to invite customers to have a seat at the table: because we believe that by taking a fresh approach, you can turn customer insights into actions and drive your business forwards.

Problem #1: You’re missing out by not sharing.
Too many businesses are stuck with an outdated structure that separates departments, resources and thinking. Departments may even have competing goals and performance metrics: is your customer retention team in direct competition with your new business goals?

Solution: Break down silos.
By moving to a more customer-centric model, you can gain visibility of the customer within your business throughout their journey. With the customer’s voice as a growth mechanic, you can connect different parts of your organisation. Start by sharing reports across teams and getting stakeholders to agree on the key things they’d like to understand.

Problem #2: You’re not there for your customers.
Often, the channels brands use have been decided by marketing and acquisition – rather than where your customers really need you to be.

Solution: Remove barriers.
Empathise with your customers and how they feel. Start with their needs and try to do the thing that’s most helpful for them. Even embracing negative experiences can have a positive effect: customers who find it easy to complain are 23% more likely to remain your customers.* Speak to your customers and monitor analytics to understand where you’re most helpful – whether that’s on WhatsApp, via email, or over the phone.

Problem #3: You’re not taking your customers seriously.
If you focus only on fighting fires, you’ll miss out on the true power of your customer’s voice. Creating a meaningful feedback loop will connect customer moments to impacts within your business, driving growth.

Solution: 360-degree listening.
Your customers talk to you in many different ways. Capturing what they say can open you to new insights and possibilities. At Ethology, we’ve developed a 360-degree listening model to understand what audiences are:

• saying – through ethnographic research and digital listening, we can hear what customers are saying in the public domain, which reflects the ego, as well as things they simply want to share

• thinking – by carrying out primary research such as surveys and focus groups, we can understand behaviours and attitudes, as well as how customers perceive themselves

• doing – sometimes, how customers really behave in a moment differs from how they think they’d behave – so we look at how they complete tasks, such as searching online or using your website

• hearing – what’s happening in the world around us can shape how your customers feel.

By considering these behaviours, we can help you create an empathetic brand that anticipates your customers’ needs and exceeds their expectations. Contact our Customer Engagement Director Sam Bettis at [email protected] if you’d like to discover more about how we can unlock opportunity for your brand.