Remember that recent experience you had at the restaurant when you went out with friends or family? What about the last grocery shopping you went to? You most certainly won’t forget about the experience at the bank either, would
you?

These experiences leave us with memories, some bitter and some sweet. We are left in awe of the prompt services and extremely wonderful personalities in some cases and in other instances left in sheer shock. The disbelief of utter
irreverence to customers as an excuse for a service leaves customers confused and wondering whether a favour was being rendered them or this was actually their monies’ worth.

What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that man set foot on the Moon but that they set eye on the earth.

Be it as it may, the challenge in all of these, whether it was a once in a life time experience that we would want to relive over and over or one that saddens us when we remember, the truth is the avenues to communicate it to
business owners are almost not in existence.

Statistics has it that, more than two-thirds of a company’s competitive edge in the market is based on the experience they deliver to their customers. What this means is that the strength of a brand or the rather unique sales pitches
amongst a host of other notable strategies and traits are no longer pivotal to an organisation’s dominance as it is a superior customer experience.

The way forward

So what is the way forward to providing a rewarding experience for customers? The answer is very simple. Ask the customer! Nothing is as sure as feedback from the customers you are in business to serve.

Not only does it provide an avenue for customers to provide feedback which
will purposefully affect a business’ operations positively but also it puts the customer at the heart of critical decision making in the business. The customer being the primary stakeholder becomes an important part of the decision making process thereby building the organization to the desired level-customer centric.

In Ghana, the reality is that feedback is still collected through outmoded, unreliable and rather expensive media such as suggestion boxes and paper surveys which may never get to business owners as is the case most of the time.

The other alternative is to hire consultants to conduct business research and surveys, a more expensive alternative and a time consuming one at that.
With the gift of technology however, there are innovative and cost effective means of collecting customer feedback.

By the click of a button and in a matter of seconds, customers can share their experiences with business owners. How will this be useful? The wonderful fact is that a store of data will be collected over time and this data can be used by business owners to help improve their business. The benefits from data to be accrued is endless!

Customer feedback applications have been of immense help to other parts of the world and continue to do so. These services provide ground breaking data insights into customer preferences and ideals.

This is the way forward for businesses and this is what customers have yearned for a while now. The win-win situation for both the business owner and the customer creates a partnership that knows no bounds and would change the face of business in Ghana and Africa for the better.