Pivot, Iteration, and Leveraging Customer Feedback for Success

This essay discusses the significance of pivot and iteration in business development, emphasizing the crucial role of customer feedback. It highlights how adapting to course corrections and incorporating customer insights can lead to success. The essay explores the 'build-measure-learn' technique, demonstrating its effectiveness in product development and revenue model creation. It contrasts pivoting, which involves significant business model changes, with iteration, which focuses on slight adjustments. Real-world examples, including an interview with a business owner and the case of Coca-Cola, illustrate practical applications of these concepts. The essay underscores the importance of gathering and acting upon customer feedback to improve products, enhance customer retention, and make informed business decisions, ultimately driving business growth and competitive advantage. Desklib offers a wealth of resources for students seeking to further explore these topics.

Running Head: PIVOT, ITERATION AND THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER FEED BACK 1
Pivot, Iteration and the Role of Customer Feed Back
Student’s Name
Affiliation Institution

PIVOT, ITERATION AND THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER FEED BACK 2
Pivot, Iteration and the Role of Customer Feed Back
Response 1
Most successful businesses do not progress as planned by the management. The
expectations are sometimes different from the results, which befalls them. Adapting to small
course corrections leads to the road of success. Flexibility is valued more than perfection and this
determines the quality of iteration and how the pivot should be, frequent small iterations work
for the most part of it. Data published about each directory is an example of small iterations.
Through showing, people the number of visits that each directory has, ranking of the directory in
google and the number of the top position that has been generated by the directory for the people
that are listed on it (Mickens, 2010). This is a small change to the marketing and have details and
it is driven by the tests in an environment and the exclusive customer feedback that has been
received.
In large pivot, a path may be considered now or maybe in the future. These paths may
include launching of the directories on the back burner and focusing on white labeling. This is to
mean that the directories are not sold but the system is used to manage the directories (Li et al.,
2014). This is a major change to the business model. This is still driven by customer
development because multiple requests have been received to sell the software. An assumption
of a big iteration to be the one that consumes a lot of time, effort or money is easy to be caught
up.
Customer’s feedback is very essential in product developing. Most businesses make this
mistake of developing products without inquiring the prospective customers’ needs. The
technique of build-measure-learn technique helps one to realize when things are wrong before it

PIVOT, ITERATION AND THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER FEED BACK 3
is too late to change the failure into success ("The Importance of Customer Feedback And
Customer Care – Blog”).
Build measure learn is a principle of lean set up that is highly effective to start product
development. In the startup, a successful revenue model is developed with further investment. In
build-measure-learn technique, the new product effectiveness is continuously improved. A model
involving creating and testing hypotheses is built for potential customers to try, test their
reactions and learn from the results (Markides, 2015). The objective of this is to effectively
improve the product for the customers so they eventually get what they want. Build-measure-
learn technique is best for fast changing environments that are difficult to conduct research and
where customers are not so clear about the product.
Response 2
Pivoting involves the change of the business model as a whole in order to venture into a
different market opportunity. The core idea is usually undermined, which makes the entrepreneur
venture into a different business model
Iterating, on the other hand, involves slight changes of the current business model for an
entrepreneur to be able to capitalize on a close related market opportunity. The new models are
closely related to the initial idea. Iterating can be done casually while Pivoting takes a longer
time to execute it. You need to evaluate your customers, know their taste preferences, price
margins and their willingness to purchase your products ("Why Customer Feedback is Important
to Your Business (6 Reasons)," 2014). Either offer products and services that a small group has
the ability to pay for or concentrate on a larger group of paying customers. The consumers are
usually interested in uniqueness of your products and how those products can meet their needs.

PIVOT, ITERATION AND THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER FEED BACK 4
Failure to focus on your product features in order to fit consumer needs could lead to drastic
losses. This is an indicator that you should pivot your business model.
As an entrepreneur, rather than solving your consumer needs, you also need to focus on
the right channels to locate your customers that is how they could purchase your products and
how to get them back after conducting their previous purchases. The customers may not afford
the prices you have set on the market (Leatherbee & Katila, 2016). Therefore as an entrepreneur,
you need to adopt Cost Leadership strategies in order to gain a competitive advantage, whereby
you reduce the cost of production and pass the benefits to the consumer by setting a relatively
affordable price for them. The entrepreneur should also consider expanding his market by
targeting surplus customer segments.
Having too many competitors in the market as well as being new in the market could
greatly become a threat to your business. The other external forces include the PESTEL macro
forces, which include political, Economic, Social-Cultural, Technological, Ecological and Legal
forces (Markides, 2015).
Improves products and services; this ensures that you meet the required consumer needs
by solving their problems in terms of diversifying their tastes and preferences. Gaining consumer
retention: It acts as a channel of communication in order to know if your customers have been
satisfied with your delivery of services. Entrepreneur conducts better decision making by
acquiring tangible data: that is by improving your products, services, and concepts of business.
Initiating improved consumer experience: When your customer get satisfied with your services,
they tend to refer other customers to you thus gaining a competitive edge in the market.
Response 3

PIVOT, ITERATION AND THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER FEED BACK 5
The case study was derived from Coco-Cola Company that deals with soft drinks. It is the
leading company, which is leading manufacture nonalcoholic syrups, and beverage concentrates.
The coca cola company has implemented pivot iteration and role of customer feedback by
monitoring to the customer behavior. This can be known by looking at your customer actions and
drawing a conclusion from that behavior, you can spot the behavior when the customer is
shopping or finding out if the customer is finding the products they are looking for and other
issues by just observing their behavior ("Customer satisfaction").
The coca cola company has implemented this model in the business by using customer
feedback tools. These tools give you the information about the customer’s feedback. Other tools
like emails, surveys, monitoring social media and direct contact with the customer. The company
may send their feedback forms to the customers through email in order to get a good feedback.
By monitoring social media through Twitter or Facebook, it is easier to know the feedback that
the customers are giving a particular product.
The implementation of this model can also be done by empowering the employee in the
coca cola company who are facing the customers. Employees get the first feedback from the
customer and so they should be empowered. Appoint someone in the business with both formal
and informal method of gathering information and feedback from the customers (Vailiev, 2010).
The company has implemented this model by using the third-party provider of feedback
and this can be a business consultant from outside who can provide unbiased feedback from the
customers. The consultant can design customer’s surveys, set up focus groups, deploy other
methods, and be able to analyze result that can meet the business goals. Some of the questions
that may be asked to the customers by the consultants on the customer feedback are what does
the customer describe the company or business as. Which products does the customer love and

PIVOT, ITERATION AND THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER FEED BACK 6
what profile of the customer will continue buying the products (7 Reasons Why Customer
Feedback Is Important, 2017).
The company has implemented this model by processing customer-based payments
claims this can be directly paid to a customer to ensure there is a good relationship with the
customer. This improves the feedback of the customer in a positive way because there are no
complaints and so improving customer experience to the business or company.
To make the customer feedback more relevant the company has provided a more delivery
key paperwork, which allows customers to discuss and receive items during a call by a
consultant, this provides a positive impact to the customer satisfaction and has a goal to answer
the customers’ questions at the first point.
Response 4
An interview was conducted with the business owner on how he is able to get the
customer feedback as a role and pivot iteration to the business. The following were the questions.
How do you gather feedback from customers and the answers were by looking at the
customer’s consistency on how they buy the products and identifying how the customer feel
about the products they offer in the business. New ideas could be that the business owner can get
the customer feedback by using survey forms, which can be placed on the counter or reception to
be easily accessible to the customer. The business owner can use the social media channel to
engage with customers by asking questions about the services and products they provide
(Morgan, Amend, George, & Hallett, 2017).
The second question to the business owner was on what measures has the business owner
taken to follow the customer feedback and the answer was by chatting them face to face. a new
idea could be that the business owner should have the customer contacts to call the customers

PIVOT, ITERATION AND THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER FEED BACK 7
directly so ask them on how they have found the service they have got from the business this
enables the business owner to get a good feedback and directly.
The other question to the business owner was how he reviews customer data to the
customer feedback the answer was by identifying the number of products and the number of
customers who have been served in a day. A new idea the business owner can use is by
reviewing the sales data and identifying the trend that the customers are buying the products is it
increasing or decreasing. The business owner can also create a customer database
(TheCompanyWarehouse.Co.Uk," 2017).
How do you know the product or service you are offering is up to customer satisfaction?
The answer was by identifying if the customer comes to buy it again, a new idea is that the
business owner should identify if the product is bought frequently in order to know if it meets the
satisfaction of the customer.
What do you do to make sure your customers do not go to your competitor to get the
products you are not offering and the answer was by offering the product were unique from the
competitors. A new idea to this answer is that the business owner should look at the customer
needs first before looking at the competitor this will help the customer want be met and so there
will be no fear that the customers will go to your competitors

PIVOT, ITERATION AND THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER FEED BACK 8
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The Importance of Customer Feedback And Customer Care - Blog ¦
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PIVOT, ITERATION AND THE ROLE OF CUSTOMER FEED BACK 9
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