Selling a house is like an on-going Customer Experience Survey.  I don’t necessarily want to call it a “Loyalty” survey…but as I write this I think, perhaps I could call it that as well.  In essence a Customer Loyalty survey is asking a basic question, “Would you recommend this company (insert house) to others (insert friends)?”

So, at its base level, recommendation is a good thing, even when selling a house.  Only, of course, if the original customer doesn’t plan on buying “my” house is a recommendation the next best thing.

But getting a house ready has all of the elements of a business creating a strategic advantage in the marketplace for as many viable customers as possible.  They, the customer, want to see a well manicured lawn, an uncluttered appearance outside and in.  They want to walk in the door and feel at home – comfortable…kick your shoes off and stay awhile.  They want to be able to see themselves creating a home inside these four walls.

I’ve even created a little flyer that sits on the kitchen island that thanks people for taking the time to visit.  And as for feedback, my realtor has a website where we can gather input from all of the customers who’ve seen the house.

As for Avnet, we work with a great organization – Walker Information.  Very much like selling a house, except on a much larger scale, we survey our customers to find out what they are thinking and what they are saying.  As the old saying goes, “If you don’t know about it, how can you be expected to fix it?”

We prepare our business strategies, execute our plans, ask for feedback, make adjustments, and re-create our business strategies so we can better meet the needs of our business partners.  Then we do it all over again.  Only by creating that collaborative environment can both parties win.  We need open and honest dialogue on how to improve and what opportunities exist for growth.

Without this dialogue, we would struggle to excel in our given environments – house or business.

Next week I’ll be starting a series on how we work with Walker Information to create just such an environment for constant improvement.  In the meantime, wish me luck on selling my house!

Sold!

M

Posted under Customers, Value Proposition