How Can a Company's Salespeople Help with Product Development?

Salespeople are on the front lines of interacting with customers and potential customers. They hear first-hand what customers want and need, what they like and don't like about current products, and where there are opportunities for improvement. All of this feedback is invaluable to product development teams as they work to improve current products and develop new ones.

In addition to providing direct feedback from customers, salespeople can also keep an eye out for competitor products that might be gaining ground. Understanding what features of these products are appealing to customers can help inform product development decisions.

Lastly, salespeople can be a valuable conduit for market research. They can help to assess customer sentiment around proposed new products or features, and gauge whether there is likely to be customer demand. This information can be critical in helping to make decisions about which products or features to develop.

Overall, salespeople can play a vital role in helping to shape and improve a company's product offerings. By being attuned to customer needs and preferences, and gathering feedback and market intelligence, they can help to ensure that products are developed that will meet customer demand.

Salespeople conduct market research to gain an understanding of their target market. This research helps them to understand the needs and wants of their target consumers, as well as the buying habits of these consumers. This information allows salespeople to tailor their sales pitch and marketing materials to better appeal to their target market. Additionally, market research can provide salespeople with insight into trends that may impact their sales. Salespeople may use market research to understand how changes in the economy, technology, or social media usage may affect their sales. For example, if a salesperson is selling products that are impacted by a change in fashion trends, they will want to know about this change so they can adapt their sales strategy. Additionally, market research can help salespeople to identify new opportunities for selling their products or services.

Salespeople are the lifeblood of any company that sells products or services. Without feedback from customers, product development teams would be flying blind. Given the importance of customer feedback, it's surprising how few companies have a formal process for collecting and sharing it with the appropriate people.

The best way to collect customer feedback is to make it easy for salespeople to submit it. This can be done with a simple online form that captures the customer's contact information, the product they purchased, and their feedback. The form should be easy to find on the company's website and should be accessible from any device, including mobile phones.

Once feedback is collected, it's important to quickly share it with the right people. In most cases, that will be the product development team. But depending on the nature of the feedback, it might also be appropriate to share it with other teams, such as marketing or customer service.

The best way to ensure that feedback is acted upon is to have a clear process for how it will be used. For example, the product development team might promise to review all feedback within 48 hours and to respond to the customer within 7 days. This process should be well-documented and communicated to all salespeople.

By making it easy for salespeople to submit customer feedback and by sharing it quickly with the right people, companies can make sure that this valuable information is not lost.