For years, executives and marketers have been trained to rely on market research to uncover customer insight and call centers to recognize important emerging issues. But today’s business moves too fast for these conventional methods to keep pace. Companies that commit to a culture of listening for business intelligence —whether using surveys and polls or via behavioral, website or insight analytics — can gain competitive advantage in eight important ways:

1. Listen for Growth

Customers identify opportunities for revenue and profit growth in your business. 

Value: Use customer insight to hear every individual from every segment and understand what they want to buy, what they like/dislike, every moment of every business day.

2. Listen for Product Quality

Customers identify product quality issues that evade inspection or arise during everyday usage. 

Value: Use customer insight to avoid costly recalls, returns, and refunds.

3. Listen for Problem Correction

Customers identify mission-critical problems with products, services, and the organization. 

Value: Use customer insight to fix problems in a timely, cost-effective manner.

4. Listen to Foster Customer Loyalty

Customers identify key factors for improving loyalty, retention, and satisfaction. 

Value: Use customer insight to encourage repeat business and keep buyers happy.

5. Listen to Improve Brand Management

Customers identify both strengths and weaknesses in your brand promise. 

Value: Use customer insight as a metric to test brand extensions and stay in tune with consumer sentiment.

6. Listen for Market Research

Customers identify business and consumer trends faster than traditional market research methods. 

Value: Use customer insight to find and validate new markets and opportunities.

7. Listen for Competitive Advantage

Customers identify new product possibilities, enhancements to existing products, and shortcomings of rival products and services. 

Value: Use customer insight to gain significant advantage over the competition.

8. Listen for Context

Customers identify exactly what they like, dislike, want, and need from products, services, and their Web experience. 

Value: Use customer insight to put the customer experience into the right context.

Conclusion

The “build it and they will come” mentality doesn’t work in the Web 2.0 era. Listening to customers is the first step toward building lasting business relationships in today’s competitive and increasingly commoditized business environment.