Involve everyone
At Cincom, understanding the client isn’t just left to the sales team. Nies says it’s important that every layer of the organization, from him to the front desk, is involved in inquiring how the company can better serve the customer.
“We try to involve everyone in the company, in every way possible with inquiring of the marketplace every day and every interaction,” Nies says.
The importance of involving multiple levels of employees is the ability to then go back, discuss the feedback and piece together the larger picture of what the customers’ needs are and what their business will look like in the future.
“I would most certainly recommend that all companies do it no matter what you’re selling or providing,” Nies says. “Typically, senior executives don’t want to talk to lower levels of the provider’s organization, they typically want to interact with their peers. You’re not going to get good insight from senior-level people unless your own senior-level people are willing to do the work necessary to interact with them.
“Similarly, the technicians don’t want to talk to the senior-level executives of a provider, because their interest is in the technical aspect of the product: How does it function? What does it do? What are its features and capabilities? You have to match people on both sides of the organization, the provider and the consumer. Then they have to constantly review and digest that within their own company to make sure that insight is being gained and all aspects of those insights are considered.”
If you want employees at multiple levels within your organization to participate in the customer discussion, you need to explain to them what their role is and teach them how to interact with the customer.
