Are your IT services as relevant as they need to be? In order to remain successful, you need to remain relevant– and in order to remain relevant, you need to provide the services your customers care about.
Industries today move quickly; what customers desired yesterday isn't necessarily what they need today. To retain customers, you must be constantly building a better business canvas.
Determining the Customer's Needs
What is your value proposition? Building a business canvas begins by understanding your customers and their issues. What do your customers need? Are you meeting all of your customer's needs– and if not, how can you?
You can determine your customer's needs through a wide variety of data collection: social media ‘listening’, conversations and interviews with your customers, and via data collection from your competitor’s websites. Find out what your customers are talking about with other people. Identify both what you’re currently offering and what you should be doing to better meet your customer's requests. An honest assessment of your abilities is absolutely essential.
Business as Problem Solving
What is your customer's number one problem? Offering services is often all about problem solving. Are you certain the solution you are offering is solving their problem? What makes your solution better than the solutions of your competitors? Is it a solution that feels right to the consumer?
Take some time to drill down to the core issues your consumer is facing and identify any possible improvement methods. If you aren't asking these questions, be certain your competitor is.
Customer Education and Awareness
Having the best services in the world won't matter if you haven't increased the customer awareness of your services. What are you doing to ensure your audience is aware of the solutions you are currently offering? Keep in mind sometimes your customers may not even be aware of your full inventory of services.
Increasing awareness among your internal customers is the best way to keep the budget you have and increase your share of the IT pie. Reach out to customers and ensure they understand your products and services and– more importantly– how these products and services would fit into their business model.
If you aren't reaching out to your customers, someone else is. You must constantly move and improve your business canvas in order to remain competitive. New companies are constantly arising and will always attempt to do what you do both better and cheaper; it's up to you to make sure your products and services remain at the forefront of your customer’s mind.
