How do companies use the markets voice to influence innovation

Source: Customer Feedback

       The market is very important to companies especially because it drives innovation. Innovation is very important for companies to stay ahead and competitive in all segments of the market. So how do companies allow get this feedback from their customers, they allow them to share their thoughts, engage the right group of people, and get the consumer involved early.
     
          A great example of this is Apple, the company at first did not really reach out to customers but after the IPhone 5C tanked they started really asking the consumer what they thought they could do better and their sales have been growing ever since this started. Other companies like Southwest airlines use customer feedback to maximize the passenger experience from doing things like giving free checked bags and easy options to reschedule if you miss a flight, because of these changes there earning and stock price have been growing exponentially according to a yahoo finance article.  According to an Inc.com article companies can maximize their profits by appealing to what their costumes like about the product or service they provide.  An example the article gave was Southwest took a customer survey to see what the most memorable part of the flight was 1.5% of the people surveyed said that the pre-flight safety talk was the most memorable part of the flight.  the article cited that if Southwest could increase that number to 3% they could increase there profits by 140 million a year.

     I think that this is the most important thing a company can do is use customer feedback.  In the case of Southwest a very low percent of people found the safety talk to be memorable if they can improve the satisfaction of the pre-flight talk to 3% their profits increase greatly.  Customer feedback is a very important tool that gets underused way too much and that should change.