Listening to Customers

Walker's bi-annual Fall Forum is in full swing -- today, we explored several potentially powerful ways of using customer feedback to make a real impact on the business.  As just one example: have you ever really thought about how customer information could help inform an Aqcuisition decision?   

One forum attendee confided during a break: the number of applications and potential audiences for customer information is overwhelming, especially in my current company culture... I don't know where to start!   I'm sure you can relate to feeling that way at one time or another, and we all know what usually happens next too:  Nothing.  No action.  No change.  

Perhaps it's human nature to ignore all of those bright ideas we had and chug along status-quo when we cannot quickly find a simple and meaningful place to start.  

So where do we start?  One way would be to develop a roadmap - whether formal or informal.  I like to keep informal 'roadmap' ideas on my internal team wiki space, for instance.  Another good way is to ask for help from someone who has done it before.  What approaches have you found to be effective? 

Krista Roseberry
Senior Analyst
Walker Information