I've been a web developer for 14 years and it seems every business owner, client, or company I've worked for has the same problem. They have no idea what their customers are thinking until there's a problem. And even then, sometimes a contract is just cancelled out of the blue, or a customer never comes back. No communication. No information to improve your offering with. After speaking with a restaurant manager friend of mine it seems this isn't just an issue with the tech industry.
How do you read the room? How do you guage whether someone is actually happy with your service, or has already decided to churn and just can't be bothered with the awkward pre-cancellation conversation? How do you figure out where your companies strengths and weaknesses lie in the eyes of your customers? I'd love to hear more about people's experiences with this, how people are going about it just now, what would be useful in a tool designed to help with this.