If you want better answers, ask better questions
Marketing is largely about research and understanding. Uncovering opportunities and insights within your industry, market, customers, and products in order to better suit the needs and desires found. Discovering themes, trends, and gaps within your service delivery or customer experience journey to fill the holes with moments that wow, and can all start simply with collecting feedback.
Receiving feedback can at times be a hard pill to swallow. Highlighting those potential weak spots, we may or may not know exist, and hearing how others feel they might do it better can be a challenge to some. However, feedback is a powerful tool to learn from, implement meaningful change with, and fuel innovation within your hospitality business, marketing plans, as well as your personal life.
When we attempt to understand feedback from our team or customers, we are giving them the opportunity to be heard and potentially have an impact. Think of it this way, if you can uncover why your team enjoys working in your hospitality business, or why your customers consistently feel attracted to your brand and marketing this gives you an insight into their decision-making and motivations for opportunities to duplicate and enhance.
Unfortunately, there are still many hospitality businesses that fail to include this type of market research as part of their overall marketing strategy with both customers and team members. Remember, it’s the willingness to deeply understand your team and customers that drive creativity and foster a culture of innovation.
The real power hides within the question.
When we ask better questions, we naturally improve our marketing mindset by applying a critical thinking and problem-solving mindset. When we frame questions in relation to the answers we seek it helps us to set the tone for thinking and in turn, influence the conversation. It’s also beneficial to consider the type of questions asked and if the respondent is going to enjoy answering them.
“Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” – Tony Robbins
So now you know seeking and receiving feedback holds many opportunities, the next step is to consider the questions you plan to ask. Not only the questions, but the type, tone, sequence, and framing also matter. Questions help us to frame the answers and get to the bottom of the problems we are looking to solve and the opportunities we are looking to create.
To help get you started, here are a few marketing guidelines to help you create better questions for better answers.
Have a clear goal in mind – what is it that you are really trying to understand? What answers and information will help you progress towards your goals quicker? What insights will help uncover opportunity gaps in your market, audience, or team?
Remove the fluff – what are the most important questions you desire to ask? Why are these the most important? What will they help uncover? What questions are more valuable than others?
Mix quantitative with qualitative questions – whilst metrics provide you with a relative score for a moment in time, they generally won’t provide you with the means to implement meaningful change. What questions can you marry up with your metrics to uncover hidden experiences?
Ask follow-up questions – soliciting more information through probing can further help to uncover insights in your audience by taking it a step further. What further questions can you ask? Not all questions are created equal so consider what opportunities you have.
Measure the change you’re striving for – are your questions relevant to what you’re measuring? Are they irrelevant to the customer? Are they vanity metrics for you?
Consider the length, type, and content – are you asking too many questions that your audience won’t finish? Are they clear or ambiguous in nature? Are they formal or informal in the way asked? Are they open-ended or closed-ended?
Consider the sequence, flow, and tone – does it feel natural from one question to the next? Are you jumping all over the place and potentially confusing your audience? Are you too direct upfront? How does the tone come across?
Asking more questions gives the opportunity to develop new perspectives and raise the quality of your thinking and actions with your hospitality business, and life. The opportunity also lies in the way you approach situations and circumstances in a way that fosters critical thinking, problem-solving, and growth.
And it all starts with asking the right questions!
If you aren’t sure where to start with your research and insights, then this is what is covered in the Hospitality Marketing & Insights Program. Learn more about how this program can help support the change you’re seeking.