Your
customers should be at the heart of everything you do; put them first
and the rest should follow. They
can be both your greatest advocate and your greatest critic, so it's
important to keep track of who they are and what they want from you.
Generally
speaking, customers are
often far less loyal and trusting than they used to be, especially
in industries which suffered reputational blows during the financial
crisis. Even in unrelated industries, you're probably feeling some of
the same effect. At the same
time, customers also have more power than ever before,
due to the rise of social media, online comparison shopping and a
greater proliferation of choices.
The
diversity of those customers continues to increase, which puts a
premium on mirco-segmentation and deep customer insight. However, by
increasing the noise-to-data ratio, the data deluge resulting from
the internet can actually make it harder to see and understand your
customer base.
Economic
uncertainty and data overload confuses customers as well as
businesses. This makes them less interested in products than in
flexible, adaptive solutions, creating customers who are trickier and
more demanding than ever. Therefore, it's more important than ever to
really get inside the heads of your customers and try to stand in
their shoes.
Five
Ways to Really Understand Your Customers and Know What They Want
1.
Field diverse customer services teams. Diverse
staff are more likely to be able to understand and communicate
effectively with a diverse range of customers.
2.
Understand partnerships.
Most business, especially digital ones, are only successful these
days if they are able to build strong partnerships. Being
aware of the various
important players and their roles can help illuminate the specific
nuances of an industry. This
can also provide good opportunities for disruption and potential cost
savings if a vendor or provider can be removed from the equation.
3.
Use social media. Having
social media accounts is a must in modern business practices,
allowing you to interact with customers and track their
preferences/habits/activity.
Platforms such as Facebook
and Twitter provide a wide range of insights into current and
potential customers, including their buying habits.
4.
Use big data sources and
leverage that data to obtain critical insights into your customer
base. Make sure you focus on the quality of the data, rather than the
quantity but at the same time, use every bit of data you can collect
from as many sources as possible. Also, remember that your business
operates in real time so your analytics should as well. This
allows you to understand what's happening as it's happening and to
take appropriate actions to ensure optimal user experience and obtain
the best results for your business.
5.Anticipate
what your customers will want tomorrow, a strategy which has served
many entrepreneurs well, such as Richard Branson and Steve Jobs. Use
different tools, such as scenario planning to explore how underlying
market shifts may affect your customers in the future.
Smart
Scenarios
Good
scenarios provide competing intellectual windows onto a complex
phenomenon and challenge how you think about it. The aim is to test
your current strategy and to make sure that your plans include enough
flexibility that you can weather whatever the future brings. For
example, if automakers in the US had examined various globalisation
and technology scenarios a few decades earlier, then they might have
switched their design and manufacturing strategies much sooner,
shoring up and protecting the industry.
Start
by defining the issue – look at it in terms of time frame, scope
and decision variables. Then, make a list of what you already know.
Ask which current trends will affect your industry in the future,
then document these trends and explain why each exerts a significant,
lasting influence. Follow up by identifying what you don't know –
this means potential uncertainties which could affect your business
in the future. Briefly explain why and how each point matters, and
how they may be interconnected.
In
response to this knowledge, construct multiple scenarios with
different outcomes for each uncertainty. Identify how and where each
of your scenarios may be inconsistent and eliminate combinations
which seem implausible. You should end up with a few diverse but
plausible scenarios which cover a wide range of the possibilities
your business may face.
Top
Tips
1.
Identify your knowledge gaps and how best to fill them. This will
provide direction and help you to set measurable goals to track your
progress.
2.
Keep asking whether you're
doing the right thing by your customers. If you are, that should mean
you're also doing the right thing for your brand, business and team,
too.
3.
Don't be complacent. Keep
learning, doing more and finding ways to improve as a brand, team and
individual.
4.
Never assume you know what
your customer wants or needs. Stay objective and allow the data to
provide insight.
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Our next event will be at TateHindle on 12th October. We hope to see you there!
