Are you giving your customers what they want?
Do you know what your customers really want? Maybe you did five years ago, when they first came to you, but everything moves so fast now, their needs and wants might have changed. Customer listening is a fantastic way of helping learning, HR and talent suppliers dig beneath the surface to understand what customers think of your product, service, marketing and communications.
Alignment has been a watchword for the learning industry for years. How can learning teams align with the business to generate maximum value and impact? And how can suppliers align with the changing needs of customers? Alignment is more pressing than ever as budgets tighten and technology challenges the content creation and production parts of the industry. The Learning Performance Institute’s Learning Survey 2024 shows that more than 60% of suppliers sell learning content what happens to that revenue stream if tech can do it instead? The report also shows that 47% of suppliers are experiencing more competition.
The three biggest threats to the future success of suppliers, according to the LPI research, are: increased competition, lack of strong development roadmap/market strategy and ever-changing customer requirements.
So how can suppliers overcome these challenges? Stay close to your customers and market. This provides you with feedback on your products and services, which you can feed into your product roadmap. It also alerts you to your customers’ challenges, which again, can shape product and service development.
Insights Media helps suppliers gather these insights through our customer listening programme. In-depth customer interviews generate rich feedback for suppliers and because they are carried out by our independent researchers, the feedback is more candid.
The process of carrying out in-depth interviews also helps customers reflect on their challenges and what they need from their supplier. And this can build customer engagement.
It doesn’t stop there customer insights help identify the challenges customers are facing, and the type of content and insights related to those challenges that customers would like to receive from their suppliers. These insights can shape your marketing strategy and keep it relevant throughout the year, something that is a big challenge for suppliers - 66% of suppliers saying they need to improve their marketing, according to the LPI research.
The research also shows that 68% of suppliers want to be more influential in the L&D industry. Customer insights provide great content for case studies and testimonial quotes, which, according to research carried out by FT Marketing Services, are the most preferred thought leadership content type for senior executives.
Regular, in-depth customer interviews carried out by an independent research partner helps suppliers stay aligned with customers challenges and requirements, unearth new product and service ideas and generate areas for improvement in existing services.
And there’s more. The customer listening process creates insights that can feed into your brand positioning and communication, marketing strategy and thought leadership activities, helping you build credibility and cut through in a fast evolving and highly competitive market.
- Find out more about the Insights Media Customer Listening Programme by contacting: [email protected]