Catalog Marketing: Your Brand Never Takes a Summer Vacation

3. Ask customers: Sometimes you can’t get all of the information you need about where your brand fails by merely watching customers’ activity. “Pick up the phone and talk to your customers,” Syverson says. “Send them e-mail questions; just try to get into their heads and listen.” Whether it’s because your product quality has fallen off or because your Web site is harder to navigate than your competition, Syverson notes that customers usually will tell you why they’ve changed their shopping habits. Once you know what’s wrong, then you can start to respond.