Listening to Your Customer is the First Step - By Lance Winslow - Book Review

By Lance Winslow

Far too many companies try to second-guess the customer, and try to figure out what they want, then they make huge marketing plans, spend millions of dollars, and then in the end they can't figure out why the customers don't like it. This is why you need to ask your customers what they want and desire, and what they are willing to pay for. Although this might seem like common sense, far too many marketing experts, gurus of branding, public relations specialists, and even small business people who are in front of the customer every day make mistakes here.

If you'd like to be right 100% of the time when it comes to your customers and if you wish to build brand loyalty, no matter what size your company or organization is then I have a very good book that I'd surely like to recommend to you. This is a book that I personally own, it is very simply written, and you can read it fast. The name of the book is;

"The Customer Shouts Back! 10 Big Changes You Need to Make If You Want Their Lifetime Loyalty" by Ross Shafer, Dog Ear Publishing Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, 2005, (229 pp); ISBN:1-59858-062-0.

The author asks some very simple questions, for instance who killed customer service? And since he wrote it around 2004 and 2005, I'm sure you can remember that during the time business was pretty good, and customer service was very poor. It was hard to find good help due to high employment numbers. Most of the things that you've heard before such as; "a happy customer will tell three people, and an upset customer will tell 20 other people," are addressed in this book.

But the author takes it one step further, and explains how you can take a normal complaint, and turn it into a bonanza for future profits, customer loyalty, and a boomerang of instant high quality referrals. Again, regardless of the size of your business these great ideas work nearly anywhere. I was fortunate enough to heard this authors speak at a seminar, and felt obligated to buy his book. I've kept his book because it is so good, so refreshing, and so interesting that I believe every small business person should own one and every corporate executive who's ever made a mistake when rolling out a new product.

And really, there is no need to go into denial, we've all made mistakes here. So, this book is for everyone in business, and everyone thinking of starting a business as well. Indeed, hope you please consider this.


By Lance Winslow
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