Knowing and understanding your customer is important to any organization. It does not matter what industry or audience, understanding the wants and needs of your customer is absolutely critical.

One of the techniques I like to use when conducting voice of the customer type surveys is to test the questions on the requesting senior managers and management team.

Why you ask?

Most management teams think they have a strong understanding of their customers. By having the management team answer the questions how they think their customers will answer, I can compare how well they really know their customers.

Often the results don’t match and it is a real eye-opener to senior managers and line personnel. Plus, it is a great device to frame the results for your audience.