Listen to your customer's story

I was reading this article Sunday titled Poison Pill. ( Sunday's I usually read about health care issues. That allows me to post about them on Monday for Health Care Mondays over at my other blog.)

But instead the article ended with the reminder to listen to your customers. They'll tell you what they need.  In this article the customer was a patient and vice versa. As a patient she was a customer of the hospital and the resident and his team.  After standard reports and tests had failed to diagnose the source of this customer's needs, the doctor asked the customer, the patient, to tell him her story.

Sir William Osler, the father of modern medicine, taught his students that the patient’s story will often contain the key to making a diagnosis. It was important advice at the turn of the 20th century, when few diagnostic tools were available. And it is still true, as research shows. Even now, 75 percent of diagnoses are based on the patient’s story alone. “Listen carefully to the patient,” Osler exhorted. “They will tell you the diagnosis.” You just have to pay attention.

I can't imagine the percent for solving a customer's needs, of delivering a product or service that best fits THEIR needs, is much different than with those of patient diagnoses. It's the same dynamic with customers:  Listen carefully. They will tell you what they need. You just have to pay attention.

Comments

[Chris Sherrod]

When you listen to your customers story you can provide them with what they truly need and want. Richard Branson travels with a small notebook (I love moleskines) and writes down any complaints and suggestions. I do the same. My book Prosperity Games explains how to use notebooks and keeping your Idea Bank organized.

Chris Sherrod - AbundanceUnlimited.com