Listening to customers effectively 👂

In Episode 4 of Season 1, Hacene Taibi goes through his journey building Bistrochat, a restaurant booking, search and loyalty app in Hong Kong that uses natural language processing and AI to give users and businesses seamless experiences.

Hacene explains that as a team, they provide 7-days support amongst the co-founders, and personally address them at 10PM on a Saturday if they have to! Talk about dedication. And especially during their early stages, their support and care to just listen had given them an unfair advantage that boosted more and more users and businesses to trust them.

Users and businesses expect their voices and opinions to be heard - you are building your products for them after all! This is what ultimately attracts them to stick around.

A successful product is one that solves pain points well!

So how do you listen to customers effectively?

🤙 Ways to listen to customers effectively

‍

💬 Communicate frequently

Communicating enough with your users doesn’t only help you stay on top of their minds, but it also helps you stay in tune with their preferences, which can be extremely dynamic - what they want this month might widely vary 3 months later.

See how you can get in touch with them regularly in a sense that makes sense for your business and product development, it could be asking them for feedback on new features you roll out, or even just messaging them to see how they’re doing so far.

‍

🤝 Respond quick

Whenever you’re reaching out to your users or if there is an issue, usually the key to their patience is your proactivity in resolving it.

Fast responses lets them know that you have received and acknowledged their input, and are working hard to resolve their issues. The longer you take to reply back, the more upset your users become. So even if you don’t have a solution yet, acknowledge them and let them know when to expect an update from you - be transparent!

‍

🧩 Ask for their thoughts and ideas

More often than not, different users have different experiences and would probably have countless ideas that could be even innovative for you. After all, it is the users feedback, comments and suggestions that would help drive your business/product to the direction you need it to.

Welcome their input whenever you’re in contact with them, including during sales conversations! See what they would add, change or remove about your product - their thoughts might surprise you!

‍

🎢 Make experiences consistent

How to keep a loyal user base? By giving them amazing, and consistent customer experiences with your company across all platforms.

If you aren’t consistent in your delivery and service, why should they be consistent with you?

Take as much data as you can in your customer service everywhere and see where you can improve or stitch experiences together. If you find one strategy that works well for your company, see if you can replicate it to other platforms. Target positive, consistent experiences that match positive feedback.

‍

👀 Keep an eye out on social media

One of the easiest ways to connect with and listen to your users is through social media - 9 times out of 10, they’re on at least 1 well-known platform!

Follow those that might be interested, and hashtags that they use or are relevant. There, you’ll find posts and a closer peek to your users thoughts. Like and comment, and engage with them even if it was just playful banter, it shows them that there is a real person behind your business/products. You can even use social media to roll out ideas and see their reactions.

‍

🙋‍♀️ Involve them in the product development process

If you’re looking for feedback on new features or products, and if you have keen / tech-savvy (/product savvy) users, consider directly involving them in your development process!

Share with them an overview of your product roadmap, and see what they say! They can also give their thoughts on unfinished products, but no matter what - take their input seriously, and focus on what they’re really trying to convey when they provide their feedback.

‍

💥 Bonus:

Hacene’s top tips for entrepreneurs

🦾 It’s going to take longer than you think. See your product through and keep pushing.
🚦 There’s no way you can’t find a way to success. Your job is to find that route and to keep pouring energy to it.
⛔️ Failures help direct you to success. Now you know what doesn’t work, test out what might.

‍

🎧 Listen now on your favourite podcast channels

Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Other channels

‍

🎙 Stay in touch:

• Follow Behind the Product on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Connect with me on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Suggest a guest
• Give me feedback