Like most business people, I am often asked "what does your company do?" My short answer is usually "Zepol provides information services to international trade professionals". However, behind the scenes, I view us as a software development company running at full speed. We continually enhance existing services and develop new services for our customer base, in order to maintain and grow our revenue streams. Our focus is pretty straight forward - build something our customers are asking for, let marketing and sales take over, and then get right back to building some more. The key for us is to continually add value for our customer base and that means rapid development!

I was recently on the east coast meeting with customers and prospects and was talking to an existing customer who mentioned "you have rolled out some nice upgrades recently". I asked him how many he thought we have done in the past year and he replied "three or four". When I informed him we had actually completed fourteen significant enhancements in twelve months, he was floored. This particular customer was impacted by only a few recent enhancements, but our customer base as a whole has benefitted by all fourteen major enhancements (fifteen as of this week).

Despite surveys and customer visits, it is difficult to know exactly which "enhancement"  will impact each customer. Customers have very different needs and if you focus in on only the needs of a few, you risk alienating the others – that is a slippery slope. Additionally, dedicating resources to only meeting the needs of your top customers may ultimately reduce your growth potential with the rest of the market. So, what do you do?

At Zepol, we have decided to solicit feedback from all our customers. Additionally, we value input from our employees (including those not involved in day to day product development). Lastly, we are dedicated to leading the market in product innovation and putting the resources in place to make this a reality.