Here are four innovative ways to better understand your customers’ needs, and provide the type of service that leads to more business:

1. Capitalize on how digital technology has changed the sales game: If Marketing was 80% creative and 20% logistics back in the early 90s, it’s the exact opposite now. Social media, email and other resources give marketers access to honest, instant feedback and analytics whenever they want it. That means companies can adjust on the fly, tweaking their sales and marketing processes to reflect changes in buyer behavior, then monitoring the business impact of each adjustment.
2. Fuse Marketing and Sales into one department: Research proves time and again that the more Sales and Marketing work as a unified front, sharing info and ideas, the more successful a company becomes. With that in mind, a lot of successful companies are consolidating their Sales and Marketing under one large umbrella, creating more cohesive value propositions via stronger customer focus.
3. Interview your customers: Make it a priority to schedule face-to-face interviews with loyal customers and ex-customers at least twice a year to gain a one-on-one sense of what they like, don’t like, and what changes they’d like to see.
4. Map out the buying process: Once you’ve gathered and assessed all the feedback from web analytics, social media and one-on-one interviews, determine what adjustments you’ll make to the selling process to reflect buyers’ needs.

Resource: Adapted from Internet