In the world of business, the hardest thing to build up and strengthen is arguably your customer base. As mentioned in the previous blog post, BOTH employees and customers play a crucial role in the success of a business. In terms of a smaller or startup business however, the ability to create a happy and positive working environment is much easier, because there is a smaller and more intimidate employee base. Everyone in the company knows who everyone else is. The latter of the criteria for the success is what I think is the hardest challenge a small or startup business must face.
Are traditional surveying tactics still viable?
Katie Richard’s article is on a data collection business that has been started to help other businesses collect important information about its consumers. This software provides comprehensive customer profiles just based on their “call, email, and credit card transaction”. Most importantly, businesses gets an updated and real time spending behaviour of every consumer they have. With this information, they are able to analyse it and uncover possible business trends, improvement to their products, and changes in consumers demand. The idea’s advantage is similar to a direct business model, where manufacturers are able to cut out the middlemen and receive direct feedback and customization from customers on their products. While this software provides a more implicit way of collecting information, this will no doubt be extremely beneficial for startup businesses. If they are able to effectively utilize the information given, this will make the life of the operations management team so much easier. The operations team will know exactly how to position the company and provides services and goods that give value to the consumers.
In the new age of innovative technology, businesses must realize and utilize its full potential. Traditional surveying tactics may not be the best solution anymore in terms of convenience, and reliability, and it for sure won’t be able to give you direct feedback after every transaction/purchase. Smaller businesses should embrace this new technology before other businesses realize its potential. It may be the leg up they need to compete with big name companies.
SOURCE:
http://www.businessinsider.com/signpost-launches-data-collection-tools-2014-9
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