Consumer Products
Client communication
How to really hear what your customers are saying
By Brooke Bates
Smart Business Pittsburgh | February 2009
Page 1 of 2
Ed Donnelly
CEO, DynaVox Systems LLC
It’s not unusual to find Ed
Donnelly crouched on a
classroom floor, engrossed in a
game of Chutes and Ladders;
he’s just gathering feedback
from his customers.
Donnelly serves as CEO of
DynaVox Systems LLC, which
manufactures speech-generating devices for nonverbal children and adults and creates
special education software and
games.
After just one year in the position, he’s found that the best way to drive a customer-centric
culture through the 326-employee company is to
immerse himself in the customers’ needs. So he visits
them frequently, observing how
they use his products and
learning how to improve them.
“If you ask them for the truth,
they’ll tell you, as long as you
don’t get defensive about it and
you do more listening than
speaking,” says the leader of
DynaVox, which posted 2007
revenue of $80 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Donnelly about how to make
yourself an approachable listener who customers can
unload upon.
Start with a theory. When I’m out
there visiting customers, I go in
with an intuitive direction of
where I’m taking the company.
I’m using the customer to validate or disprove that hypothesis. I have to start with a hypothesis, and then I spend a lot of
time with a lot of different customers to test the hypothesis.
It’s especially valuable in the
area of product development.
You’re thinking of product
enhancement, product improvement; you’re hearing the customers saying how they use
your products, if they had a
magic wand, what would they
do differently with the products.
Observe with authority. I’m watching to see how they’re using our
products, how they’re struggling
with our products. I don’t look
just for the good. I really tend to
look more for the difficulties
they’re having with our products, how they can be
enhanced, improved. And then
I’m not afraid to ask.
You’re not just idly observing.
Usually you’re introduced, and
people know who you are.
That’s a blessing and a curse
when you convince them that
you’re truly interested and
you’re there to learn and you
want to know what they think.
You have the power to make it
better. They will unload on you.
Learn to listen. Force yourself to
listen intently for as long as the
customer wants to talk and get
full grasp of it. Let the customer
say everything that’s on their
mind and possibly go back and
address two or three things and
clarify. Have the discipline to listen and not try to fix it.
The biggest challenge is the
CEO has to be a listener. And
while it sounds so simple,
there’s a natural tendency to want to fix things, to explain
things, to be the CEO/super-salesperson. In reality, if you’re
encouraging them to bring up
the dissatisfaction, if you are
listening intently, if you’re not
cutting them off and allowing
them to just talk and talk and
talk, you will gather multiples
of the information you would
have gotten.
You’re not there to fix it.
You’re there to learn. Those
are the challenges of the CEO:
knowing when to fix things
and when to be the listener. Be
respectful. You’re not the CEO
in that customer’s office.
Enter their world as an equal.
Make yourself approachable,
very human, very interested in their world. That’s the key, that
you are genuinely interested.
You’re the student.
You are the least knowledgeable person there. You made
the trip to learn. Have the discipline to just shut up.
Dress to the environment.
You don’t have to be in a suit-tie and cufflinks if you’re
going into a classroom. You
want to come across as
warm. You want to come
across as equals — dress and
appearance and just a big
smile. Be welcoming when
they give you input and
respond favorably to it. If you
respond defensively to it or
challenge them on their critique, it will probably be the
only critique you will get.
Even if the customer is 100
percent wrong, don’t correct
them. Let them go on. Maybe
there will be a time for correcting misperceptions later
on in the discussion.
