5 Must Ask questions in Customer Meetings & Surveys

Its important for each of the management team members of any company to talk to atleast 1 customer per week to get to know the pulse of the industry first hand. The point being different people will read / interpret things differently and the winners will be the ones who consolidate these interpretations and see patterns emerging and take appropriate actions.

The following 5 questions have to be part of every customer meeting's agenda:

1. How are you doing as a company?

2. Whats going on in your industry?

3. What do you hear about from our competitors? This is to know how your competitors are pitching to your customers and learn some tricks.

4. How are we doing?

5. Would you recommend us to your friends who would benefit from our product / service ? If this is less than 9 in a scale of 1-10. Then this customer warrants immediate attention and follow-up visits to find /fix issues.

Green Schools...

Green School design provides an extraordinary cost-effective way to

1. Enhance student learning
2. Improve student health
3. Reduce operational costs
4. Reduce student healthcare costs (because of # 2 above)
5. Increase school quality and competitiveness

Below are few ways in which green technologies can be deployed in schools.

1. Geo-thermal for Cooling / Heating
2. Muncipal & Kitchen Solid Waste for Cooking
3. Solar / PV for standard power consumption
4. Solar tracking lights & solar fiber-optics lights for lights for natural lighting
5. Green roofs for rain water retention, harvesting and also cooling the building.
6. Fuel cells
7. Air-to-water for producing safe drinking water on premises

Net financial benefits could reach upto $71/sq. ft. over a span of 15 years.

PV benefit of reduced energy use over a 15 year period at a 7% discount rate is $5/yr.

Average water use reduction is about 32%.