Last month we discussed the idea of a “value proposition” – or, why your customers should give you money. One of the keys to success with this activity is to be able to describe the Pain of the Customer that your product or service alleviates. Before customers want to buy from you, or even listen to you, they want to know that you understand their pain, their issues. The best way to find out what a customer is willing to pay for is to listen, and listen well.

How do you make money by asking questions? The best way to learn how to listen is to learn how to ask questions, a technique called “active listening.” Over the next few newsletters, I will give you examples of questions that often lead to interesting answers and conversations – especially describing the customer’s pain.

If you go to the website (www.stiehlworks.com), a video presentation describing this process is available on the homepage. It describes how listening to the customers describe “perfect” leather lead to GM saving over $3 million per year. But, how do you learn how to ask the right questions?

The first thing to understand is that the person who is listening is controlling the conversation. A common proverb in this line of work is, “God gave you two ears and only one mouth. That should tell you the appropriate proportions of their use.” The listener’s responses, both physical and verbal, control what is said. If you act disinterested or look away, the person who is speaking is likely to be uncomfortable and this behavior often will lead them to stop speaking. The next question that you ask steers the conversation where you would like it to go – hopefully, to discuss their pain or to describe a need that they have.

We begin by learning the key customer issues to be investigated. This is accomplished by using active listening techniques with salespeople or internal staff, to ask them “If I speak to customers about our product or service, what are they likely to tell me? What will their issues be?” Good questions to ask at this point include:

Checklist of 6 Good Questions to Ask the Staff

1. What customer needs or pains does our product or service address and how? What would the ideal product or service be able to do for them?
2. Who are the targeted customers for this product or service?
3. How much money or pain or hassle do these issues cost the targeted customers?
4. How can that be documented? How is it measured?
5. Who else provides similar products or services that your targeted customers may know about?
6. How would you know if you were doing a good job of meeting their needs? What predictive metrics do you have and what do they tell you (no surveys)?

One of the most surprising aspects of defining a VoC project in this way is how few companies can adequately answer these questions. Many businesses have trouble defining their business in terms of the customer needs that they meet or the pains that they alleviate. Most do not have the costs to the customer well documented nor do they have predictive metrics of success. According to the book The P.I.M.S. Principle, companies who have good answers to questions like these usually make a lot of money!

By documenting the answers to these questions, you will have identified the ways your staff sees to make money and measure progress with the customers. The next step is to talk to customers and find out how much these answers are worth to them. More on that next time.