In any industry, but most especially in the International Education Industry the best advert one can get is a satisfied customer that then goes on to spread the word about your great service and how they would recommend your school, agency, program or courses above everyone else’s. In order to gain satisfied customers you need to first identify their needs and you can do that in the following easy steps.

1. Use Existing Data and Map your Customer Journey

Most likely you have some customer data already, especially if you’re using a CRM. This would be the best place to start, go through your existing customers and their past interactions with you. See if there are any patterns that stand out, find out where your customers are coming from to see that their needs are being met. If you want to be more accurate you need to map your customer journey, find out at what stage in the purchase process they are; with a more accurate visual of how customers interact with your brand at different stages can help create a more proactive customer service.

2. Ask for Feedback

Use surveys on your website or send some to your existing contacts, after all there is no better way to find out what customers need than from customers themselves. You could also go that extra step and organize focus groups to get a more in depth results on the customer’s experience. But do not just ask your customers, involve your service teams, those who deal with your customers on a daily basis will have a clear insight, and can anticipate any existing issues and how to solve them in order to reach your customer’s needs.

3. Analyze your Competitors

Studying your competitors is not only a staple in your market research but also beneficial in identifying your customer needs. You will probably have similar target audiences, and analyzing how their customers react, what issues arise and how your competitor deals with said issues can give you a clearer insight of your customer needs.

4. Use Social Media

Nowadays, everyone is on social media, take an extra step when using your channels and instead of just posting, listen in on what your customers are posting instead. What are your customers asking for, are they happy with your service? Do they have negative comments? Is there a demand for more? Delve deeper with social media monitoring tools to identify trends, mentions, and hashtags relevant to your brand to better inform your strategy.

5. Keyword Research

Identify those keywords your customers use when looking up for your products or services. Not only does this research help you optimize your website in order to be at  the top of the search list, but it also gives you a broad insight on what it is that customers need based on their search data.

Following these steps in identifying customer needs not only helps you reach them but also exceed them along the way. Fostering a good relationship with your customers is sure to drive business growth.