Whether you’re a small business owner or you own a billion dollar business, there is no denying that your business can not survive without customers. Your customers are always right and knowing who they are, how they think and what they want is critical to successful business.

However, most small businesses are unprepared. Most fail to stand out from the pack, no strategy, no marketing plan, no service plan, just dreams and energy. Unfortunately without proper strategy and customer oriented business plan, your dreams and energy is not enough for today's business landscape. You need to reach out to your potential customers and find out what they are thinking about, and what their interests are so that you can address these needs. You need to know which features are important to these people and which are not. You need to know what price would customers be willing to pay, and why.

Here are some of the focus areas that should help you gain better knowledge and understanding of your customers.

Customer Loyalty: is more important in online world since you will compete not only with local players but also the global players who might have cost and technological advantage against you. You need to spend time, money and energy to understand how your customers define value. This is one of the critical steps to successfully driving loyalty. Most companies are completely in the dark about what drives loyalty for their customers. Is it price? Is it service? Is it a unique product? Remember, Internet has changed the customer’s perception of responsiveness. More and more, customers expect round-the-clock customer service.

Moreover, customers now arrive at Web sites time-starved and eager to locate answers. Technology tools such as customer self-service, e-mail management, and live chat and Web callback are proving increasingly critical in addressing the demanding customer’s responsiveness needs. You need to understand your limitation and work hard to neutralize any disadvantage that you may have due to your limitations. For example, if your prices cannot compete with your competition, you have to provide something different; otherwise your customers will go somewhere else. Don't provide average service. Provide extras and strive to consistently beat the expectations. If for some reasons you miss deadline or don’t meet expectations, do something that will compensate the customer for their patience and sticking with you. All these little things add up to big profits and loyal customers.

Be Consistent: If you offer multiple channels (such as web, store, etc) to your customers, make sure service is consistent across the board. Customers who receive consistent response from multiple channels exhibit greater loyalty and in turn, spend more and buy more than single channel customers. After all what is the point of having a web site that can’t not respond to a customer request in 24 hours? Set expectations up front and work hard to meet them. If you promise call back in 12 hours, you better have means to deliver on your promise. Consistency is the key. Sadly, for most companies, the customer service experience varies greatly by channel.

E-mail Marketing: Everyone has an E-mail address and millions of companies are engaged in e-mail marketing. These companies send billions of e-mails without first obtaining permission from their customers. Do not do it. Make sure you have their permission to E-mail them information. Even if you have permission, don’t e-mail your customers 5 times a day. Send an E-mail notification, newsletter, or sales notice one or two times a month. Do not E-mail people without permission, and always allow them the option to remove themselves from the list.

You need to find out what needs and/or wants your prospect customers have that is not currently being met. What problems do they have? Can you develop any product to solve these problems?
The only way to find all this out is to ask the right questions! Start with making a list of things you want to know, questions you need to find answer for. Remember, that goal of these questions is to gain intimate knowledge of your customers: you definitely want to know exactly what they are thinking and feeling, and why, don’t you?

There are several ways to ask your questions. You could use face to face or telephone interviews; Internet surveys or to participate in discussion or 'focus' boards; check out related newsgroups and chat rooms. The least expensive yet very effective option is participating in discuss boards and business forums where you can find your target marked and learn about their interests, understand their needs and wants. You can also use your existing customer database (if you have one) or rent targeted e-mail list from the list broker to send your questionnaire by e-mail, and start generating the results.