What’s the best way to find out what your customers want? How can you learn what experience, products or services are preferred by your customers? What are the trends that will drive your business?
Forget about expensive market research, focus groups and fancy surveys. Keep it basic. Think "front-line feedback."
Captain Evans from Southwest Airlines had this to say:
Some of our Flight Attendants work 4-5 days per week flying up to 7 flights per day with as many as 137 Passengers on each flight for an exposure to nearly 4,800 very diverse people. Want to know the most read book? Ask a Flight Attendant; they could have told you how popular The Da Vinci Code was going to be. What is the hot puzzle? Flight Attendants knew it was Sudoku before the rest of us did. What about the latest fashion color or most popular magazine or laptop computer? I know some great people that can answer these questions.
Small business marketing tip: Implement "front-line feedback" today. Empower those employees with customer contact to record, note, or feedback to you their observations. Have them keep lists of requests or suggestions from customers; implement changes in your business accordingly – before the competition has a clue.
