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  • Martin Scorsese and Confident Customers
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In accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures, filmmaker Martin Scorsese quoted Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” That got me thinking…

Maybe that’s why your customers keep bringing up issues that you think are long resolved—the need for proactive support, responsive customer service reps, or trained technical staff. To you, it’s history. To your customer, it’s not even past. Your company’s “old” performance failure could still be bothering them—chipping away at their confidence and having them wonder if you can meet their company’s needs in the future.

So, how do you know if something is still bothering your customers? How do you help your customers move from “you didn’t fix this fast enough” to “I know I can rely on you”?

The answer: You have a different kind of conversation — one which allows you to dig deeper, to listen not just to the result, but the cause; to not just the words, but the emotions. Performance failures are painful — and memorable—because they cost customers something. When your company’s delivery is late or customer service is unavailable, it can result in worry, overtime, increased costs, and a spike in blood pressure for your customers.

Like in any relationship, people aren’t really ready to move on until you “get it.” Find out not only what went wrong, but why it went wrong. Learn how the error impacted them—personally. Find out how your solution was received. (What worked about it and what didn’t?) Is there work that you still need to do?

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Which brings to mind something else Scorsese once said:

“There’s no such thing as simple. Simple is hard.”

Rhonda Sunnarborg, Senior Consultant
E.G. Insight

As a company that helps other organizations listen to their customers, we also make a point to actively gather feedback from our own clients. And when gathering feedback from our clients, we’re often reminded of just how important the act of listening can be to a company’s strategy.

“The Customer Review process transformed this organization into a listening company, helped us shift the focus to the customer, fostered open and honest discussion, and took down lots of silos within our company.”
- President, Global Construction Materials Manufacturer

That is certainly a nice testimonial – and we’re grateful for it – but I think there’s a lesson in it too.

What makes this statement compelling is the language. It’s powerful, genuine, and distinct. Honestly, it’s the exact type of thing we’d love to hear from all our clients. (And the kind of quote we’d like our prospects to hear.)

But we probably wouldn’t have described the Customer Review process quite that way. It took a client to give us a fresh way to look at both our services and ourselves.

The takeaway: When you ask for customer feedback, you can get more than just operational improvement suggestions; sometimes you get a new way to see yourself.

Nick Wassenberg
E.G. Insight