Win the businesses that need you now.
Payments, delivery, supply or software: whoever sells to local businesses starts here — the restaurants, cafés, salons, shops, clinics and gyms a customer walks into. Ten sellers or a thousand; the Gambia and the Gambia included.
Which of these thousands is worth a call?The ones whose own customers are complaining about the way they pay, in their own words.
Ask the question you would ask before the first call.
Six things sales teams say, and the answer each one gets.
What sales teams say
Sample a team working one market
At one bakery, customers have started naming a new complaint.
Most of what is worth calling today became worth calling this year.
5 in 8 of what its customers name today is the new complaint; 1 in 24 a year ago.
Work the businesses that came onto the list this year.
A list that is alive, business by business.
At one gym, customers praise the training and complain about the contract.
One business gets that complaint far more often than the businesses around it.
3 in 8 opinions on that contract are unhappy; on the training, 1 in 25.
Rank the whole market by that one complaint.
The businesses the product was built for.
At one hardware shop, the counter is quiet in the middle of the afternoon.
The businesses worth calling sit within a few minutes of each other.
18 businesses in one district are worth the visit; 2 in 7 are quiet at the same hour.
Work the district in the order the answer gives.
A week of calls, not a week of travel.
At one bar in a district nobody works, customers keep naming it.
Every business of the type is there, beyond those already listed.
24,000 businesses of that type sit in one market; 1 in 14 have the complaint.
Split the market from the whole of it.
Every district counted the same way.
At one shop nobody has called, customers name the same gap.
The gap runs across the type, well past one list.
3 in 7 of the type have it; on the distributor’s own list, 1 in 22.
Take the whole type, ranked by that gap.
Every business of the type, in order.
At one chain, one part of the offer sits far below everything else it does.
Highest demand, lowest satisfaction — in their own customers’ words.
2 in 5 opinions on that part are happy; across the rest of the chain, 6 in 7.
Walk in with the part of their offer their own numbers miss.
A meeting that opens on their business.
Rank a whole market by the one thing you fix.
Take one complaint, one market, one year. Put every local business in order by how often its own customers complain about it.
Of the local businesses in one market, one in twelve has customers complaining about the way they pay
The complaint here is the card machine, or tap-to-pay that fails. It is one of 500K+ opinion aspects — what customers praise or complain about — and you pick the one your product removes.
32,858 of them are restaurants and cafés. The other 40,437 are every other kind of local business, from salons and clinics to garages and gyms.
One complaint, one market, one year. Run the same question for every complaint your product removes, and choose where to start — where it came up once, twice, or three times.
One business in twelve is the list. How often the complaint came up is the order.
Just ask Realytics “Which businesses in my market get the complaint our product removes?”
Catch a business the week its customers start complaining.
The first complaint is the moment to call. New names arrive on the list every month, and a list a year old has missed most of them.
Most of the list is new this year
Two ways into one list: start where it came up most, or with the newest names. Ask again next week; the list has moved, and so has the reason to call.
Target a market by what you sell.
Start from every business you could sell to, then cut it down to the ones your product is for. Each row below narrows it further; use them together.
Every business you could sell to
Start from the whole map — every business a customer walks into, in any trade and any market. Every row below works from this one map.
One market, one city, or one district of it
Cut the map to the area a team works — one market, one city, one district. Every business in it is counted the same way, so two teams’ lists match.
What their customers complain about
Rank a market by one complaint — a delivery that arrives cold, an online booking that breaks, a dish that keeps selling out. Praise and complaints are counted apart, so a well-liked business still comes top for the problem you fix.
What customers keep asking for
Find what a market’s customers keep asking for — delivery, online ordering, a way to book ahead, paying by phone. The businesses whose customers ask most are the ones ready to buy.
Every kitchen that cooks it
Pick a dish, a drink, an ingredient or a diet: every kitchen with it on the menu, at its price — the kitchens that cook with oat milk, or serve halal-compatible dishes. A supplier or a distributor calls the exact kitchens that cook with what they sell.
The type of business you sell to
Bakeries, dental clinics, barber shops, corner groceries — the precise type, named the same way in every market, so one list holds them all.
The owner at the counter, or head office
Chains are kept apart from the independents — the owner who decides on the spot, or the desk at head office that signs for hundreds. Two different calls, and the list says which.
When each business can take a call
Every business is busy at its own hours. Pick the quiet window and the owner has time to talk; a team working a district plans a day around it.
The week a new complaint appears
A problem you fix has a start date. Ask for only the businesses where the complaint is new, and call in the week it starts.
Just ask Realytics “Which kitchens in my market cook with what I sell?”
See one line of the list before you ask for the rest.
One line of the list, field by field. The business, how it compares, what its customers say, the line to open on, the channel and the hour it is quiet — on any category you sell into.
Sample one business on the list
An independent hair salon.
Its customers complain about booking far more than at the salons around it.
The online booking keeps failing, and the phone rings out.
“Customers here keep mentioning the booking — more than at the other salons on this street.”
The shop’s own phone and email.
Quiet in the middle of the afternoon.
You open on what their customers already say. The rest of the call is yours.
Work the same market from every desk that sells into it.
Payments, delivery, supply, software, banking, insurance — all sell to the same local businesses, and each desk works its own picture of the market. Here is the market itself.
A live list, with the first line
- Every business of the kind, chain-owned or independent.
- What its customers keep returning to, in their own words.
- The business’s own phone, email and address.
Which businesses to visit, and when
- The ones within a few minutes of each other.
- Its own opening hours, and a quiet hour where the pattern is there.
- How much more often one business gets the complaint than those around it.
The whole market, ranked before the quarter
- Every business of the kind, ranked on one measure.
- How much of each market has the problem you remove.
- Which parts of a market are filling with new businesses.
The whole category, past what a distributor sells
- Every business of the category, whoever already sells to it.
- Which of them have the gap you fix, against the rest of the category.
- How often it comes up, market by market.
One chain’s locations, in its own customers’ words
- Every location a chain trades under, market by market.
- What its customers say about the part of the offer you sell.
- How each location compares with the businesses around it.
One market definition for every desk
- One category taxonomy that means the same thing in every market.
- Which are still trading, and which came on this year.
- The same question, answered against each market’s own businesses.
One market, and every desk that sells into it working the same businesses.
Weekly refreshed, since 2020
Find the businesses that need you this week.
Why do customers start complaining about a business when they do? Leave your email for your first list of businesses.