Benchmark Business Group

Shake It

June 1, 2015

Do You Understand Your Customers as Well As Google Does?  

There's a little known feature in Google Maps that displays just how well Google understands their customers. Take out your cell phone and open the Google Maps app. Now let's say you were trying to find a location, but when you got to the end of the directions the destination was wrong. Frustrated? Shake your phone and see what happens.

 

You should get the image to the right. Google has programmed their Maps application to know that if someone isn't getting the results they want they are likely to move their hands around as they express their frustration. We'd love to tell you we read about this tip in a blog somewhere, but in full disclosure we discovered it when trying to find a destination that was mapped incorrectly! It's actually a handy tool for Google as they get immediate feedback and small business owners can use it to ensure customers are given correct directions, but more so it is a lesson in knowing your customers.

 

Imagine that your business is so in tune with your customers that you could predict how they would act in frustration, such as move their hands around, and have a system in place to assist them? This particular example uses frustrations as the trigger, but you should also be thinking about when clients are happy or even ecstatic with your services. How do they react? How does the company capitalize on the opportunity?

 

Often times in small businesses there are missed opportunities both with customer issues and customer satisfaction, because the business is reactive and not proactive in predicting the habits of their customers. This month we will be looking at what systems and training you can put in place, even without Google's resources, in order to be better prepared to proactively react to your customers' needs. This week, we challenge you to simply observe your business and look for areas of client issues and opportunities where your business might be missing out.

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