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January 30, 2006

When no one tracks your industry

Every time I read a business magazine detailing how this company or that won X points of market share from a competitor, or is the preferred choice of Y% of consumers, I wish that there was someone tracking my industry, too.

But small, private businesses are not followed by analysts, and JD Power and Associates is not surveying customer attitudes about me and my competitors.

Every year I conduct a detailed survey of my customers. I get some great feedback on our business, but very little information on how we are doing in respect to our competition. So last year I redesigned the survey to be more generic and invited my competitors to participate. Every business that agreed to email the survey to their customer list got equal access to the survey results. Almost all of my competitors participated.

The anonymous survey covered demographics, sales channels, product usage, and brand perception. I learned which market segments I was strongest and weakest in. I learned how my competitors' customers viewed me. And I got to see, at last, a big picture view of my industry and my place in it.

Before you survey your customers, see if you can survey your whole market instead.

Posted by Bob Pritchett at January 30, 2006 4:00 AM

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