To understand your customers and competitors more objectively and comprehensively can give you valuable insights into your business and allow you possible avenues for increased revenue and growth. Even though there are many different sources for new business opportunities, the most promising ideas perhaps come from fully understanding customer needs.Besides, evaluating your business competition and conducting a thorough competitor analysis are also of vital importance.

Here are several tips to help you keep up with your cpmpetitors and your own customersn you home appliances business more deeply and thoroughly.

I To Understand Your Competitors

Whether you want to admit it or not, they're out there and they're hungry for your customers.

No matter what product or service your business offers, it will always face competition. Understanding your competitors and their business practices is the key to success.

1. Do a competitive analysis.

Knowing who your key competitors are and assessing their strengths and weaknesses is another essential step that can illuminate specific growth strategies and ways to differentiate your products and services.

When analyzing the competition, consider the following:

Who are the main industry participants, and what is their market share?

What products or services do they sell, and what is their value proposition?

Which products and brands are growing more significantly and why?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors?

What strategies can you employ to build an advantage?

2. Speak to Your Competitors

If you use the right approach, you can learn a lot of information about a company by simply contacting them and asking the right questions. While they certainly won’t divulge all of their business strategies, it’s possible to get high-level information such as the size of the company, current product offerings and new markets they may be moving into. Again, even small pieces of information are helpful in putting together the overall puzzle.

3. Check Social Media

Simply monitoring social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn can offer a lot of insight into what competitors are saying. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the internet is that people speak their minds. This is especially true on review sites such as Yelp or Trip Advisor. Google also offers users the chance to review businesses, all of which is available for free online.

II  To Understand Your Customer

1. Walk in your customer’s shoes

When was the last time you put yourself in your customer’s position? Acting as a customer by following your touch points, interaction procedures and carrying out transactions will give you important insight.

As well as assessing how easy you make things for your customers, you’ll also gain important insight into the routes they take.

For example, is your branding top-notch and consistent at every point? Does your email and social media messaging flow and match? Are there any barriers in place to purchasing?

Make sure you make reviewing your customer experience a regular activity. You’ll gain understanding, as well as identify areas of improvement and innovation.

2. Evaluate consumer motivation.

Researching consumer motivation may be a particularly fruitful source of innovation.

We can use market research to get a better understanding of consumer motivation. On the contrary, when there are barriers constraining consumption — you can begin to identify possible opportunities for business innovation and expansion.

To account for differences between specific types of consumers and how they approach the buying process can also be used to guide future product development and marketing strategies to boost your bottom line.

3. Collect customer feedback

Are you seeking first-hand advice on product improvement? Customer satisfaction surveys give you the insights you need to make better decisions. A consumer survey will help you understand your customers’ likes, dislikes, and where you need to make improvements.

Before you conduct your survey, please remember that you’d better keep your surveys short. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is to ask questions that fulfill your end goal and shed light on customer needs and their purchase situation:

Ask these six key questions about your customers.

Who is the customer？

What does the customer want to buy？

Where does the customer buy?

How does the customer pay?

What price is the customer willing to pay?

Then the next question is what are the best methods of collecting customer feedback. There are hundreds of survey tools to collect feedback from customers. we’ll talk about the most popular and effective ways to collect customer feedback which include form-based surveys, phone calls and Transactional emails.

A. form-based surveys

Though there is no ‘ideal’ length for a survey, It is clear that the longer the survey, the less time will the respondents spend on each question. So only ask questions that fulfill your end goal. Ensure that every question serves a clear purpose. If you do not intend to use the information, do not ask that question. The aim is to collect customer feedback and not to have them write an essay.

B. phone calls

Hearing a person’s voice and tone is the best way to sense what they actually feel about your product.

A call will help you tell the features that get users excited, features that really make their lives easier.

The key here is that the person calling the user should genuinely want to understand their problem and offer solutions. Do not do it because you have to do it. Do it because you care.

C. Transactional emails

Transactional emails can be used as a powerful weapon to foster a dialogue with customers. Asking the right feedback question in these emails will certainly get good responses.

Inviting customers to become a part of your business through a loyalty program or questionnaire is a great way to create an emotional bond with clients, rather than a solely transactional relationship.

Keeping up with your customers and competitors is easier than it may seem. Ask yourself these questions to see where you can improve. Being critical of your own business and taking inspiration from your customers and competitors can help you be more competitive.