Often times we dilute our offering to make people happy. We give them what they think they want, tell them what we think they want to hear, rather than offering the best solution to the best customers.
Often the customer has no idea what they need or want. They need a box but will actually spend $$$ on a friggin cat tree. There’s perceived value there.
I’ve “improved” products to fit what people said they needed, only to get disastrous results.
My best starting point has always been to fix a specific problem I have had, assuming there are thousands of people out there with the same problem. Then test it.
Get feedback but always keep it in perspective.
If your people say “yes” then go. Find more of your people.
A certain percentage of people will have constructive and non-constructive feedback. That doesn’t mean anything needs to change.
DO NOT homogenize your message, product, or service to fit others. Target your ideal customer specifically. Others will come but be the perfect solution to a small slice.
When to Make Adjustments
Adjust when your Key Performance Indicators aren’t meeting what’s required to build the business.
At Defined Life, we had KPI’s all through the sales cycle. Click rate, add-to-cart and conversion rates, average sale price, return rates, and returning customer rates.
If one of these KPI’s fell short, we felt it. If two did, something was wrong and we needed to find and fix the problem.
When to Not Make Adjustments
When you’re profitable at the rate you expect, change slowly.
We would always A/B test ads, webpages, and landing pages. Buttons, headlines, calls-to-action. But these changes came slow. I never wanted to risk making a change that harmed our metrics.
Never make adjustments based on anecdotal customer feedback. We knew a certain percentage would not like our products. Some would verbalize it. Some would return them. Some even filed chargebacks. We always knew, especially when sales were exploding, a percentage would complain. Of course we wanted to minimize it but as long as it was below a certain rate, we knew it was a part of the increased sales volume.
It seems awful. You want to stop those calls from coming in. Customer service personnel get stirred up. But when 1 in 200 people have a problem with a fundamental component of your product (that your ideal people may love) do you change it or are they just not your person?
We actually did listen to customer feedback and created new products based on their feedback. They didn’t sell and it diluted our product offering. Bad news all around… we confused our ideal customers to win over a few complainers. Bad move.
People will complain. When you sell more, there will be more people complaining, but it’s usually not an increasing percentage. Hopefully, as you reach more of your target audience, it actually goes down in proportion while increasing in actual number. IE, it’s only a larger number based on your increasing sales.
Unless there is a true flaw in your offering or you did something wrong, graciously let them go.
Having a Clear Direction
This is where clearly defining your vision, purpose, and messaging makes a huge difference. By clearly defining and refining why your company does what it does, you better understand that some feedback just doesn’t align with where you’re trying to go as a business. And if a customer who isn’t your ideal customer offers an opinion about your business, you can safely take it with a grain of salt. The end result you need to focus on is actual sales.
When you have super clear messaging, you’ll better attract your ideal customer, grab some on the periphery, and see far fewer of those who don’t fit at all. You’ll have happier customers and fewer complaints. And, if you’re doing it right, higher profits.