Listen to customers
To find out what customers want and what they think of your company, you and your team have to talk to them directly. That means you need to get out of your office and actually see how customers use your products on a day-to-day basis and talk with them about it.
“For us, it’s getting out there on the front lines and actually seeing how people work with our product — both our partners but also customers — just to see what works well. How do they use it and what are they challenged with?” he says. “That gets beyond the people that actually pay for your product. It gets more to their employees who actually use it.
“That’s a good first step — really see how your product or solution is being used.”
After that, you want the customers to give their perspectives on what they need and how you can help them before you tell them what you can do.
“All of our senior team, and I’d say our midlevel team, it’s all of our responsibilities to talk to customers,” he says. “I do travel a lot. I think most of my teams travel a lot because we are a global business. But, I think, when you are going out there, whether it’s to see an employee, whether you are going to a trade show … whether you are just dealing with a problem, make sure you spend time to be in front of customers on a proactive basis.
“Do not just react to a challenge, but, on a proactive basis, make sure you are in front of customers.”
One thing to be prepared for if you aren’t proactive is dealing with unhappy customers.
“At the end of the day, we all encounter disgruntled customers,” he says. “Quite frankly, a disgruntled customer that’s talking to you is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s the disgruntled customers who aren’t talking to you that are a challenge.”
The first thing Seavers does with a disgruntled customer is the same thing he did when he became CEO of the company.
“With a disgruntled customer, the first thing I do is just shut my mouth and I listen,” he says. “I let them explain what their frustration is, let them explain what their challenge is. I do truly try to listen as opposed to try to figure out what the right answer is going to be. I always commit to fixing the problem or at least getting to the root cause of the problem.”
Sometimes there is a perception from the customer that the company does not care, which you have to explain is not the case.
“So, typically, you want to make sure you explain to them what your organization is about,” he says. “Then, I always commit to saying, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do. Here’s what the next two or three things are I’m going to do.’ Part of it is obviously looping back with the people involved and making sure I understand what happened, so I can give the customer a full explanation.
“The second piece is coming up with a solution, and the third one is trying to figure out if it’s a challenge we created, how to put in some sort of mechanism or try to put in some sort of procedure that eliminates the problem so you don’t have to fix the same problem two or three times. I usually give them a timeline for when we’re going to do that.”
If a customer stops doing business with you, don’t just shrug your shoulders and move on to the next customer. Most disgruntled customers will talk to you, so take advantage of that opportunity. If you can’t get time with them over the phone, make an appointment to meet in person.
“It’s one thing to call a customer and they’re busy and they’re putting you off and they don’t want to talk, but it’s another thing to show up,” he says. “Commit to being there, and then (say,) ‘Listen, I understand that you may not want to do business with us anymore, but I just want to listen. I want to hear what the problem is because, while you may have made a choice to go somewhere else, I ultimately want to hear what the challenges are so I can make the organization better. I’d say 9.9 times out of 10, we’re all businesspeople. Businesspeople are reasonable, and that’s the story that gets me in the door.”
Taking the time to talk with both satisfied and unsatisfied customers will set you up for success in the long run.
“One, it builds a relationship,” he says. “Two, it just makes you smarter as an organization. Three, if we are all doing it — I’d say front-line employees, midlevel managers, senior-level managers — when we come together and talk about who we are and what we want to be as an organization, we’re doing it not just from gut feel but doing it from real-world experience and doing it with customer feedback in mind.”
