Understanding your Customers has always been important. Now even with so much change going on in such a short time, how confident are you that you deeply understand your customers and what they need from your products and services? What would having total confidence in what your customers need from you and your brand mean for your growth plans?
We believe that the greatest mission of any company is to make life better for it's customers. And if you make a customers life better in a material way, that customer will gladly share some of that value created with you. In doing so they will generate more profit, more growth, give you feedback and give you their time. And your employees feel better about making customers lives better as it provides them a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.
Companies newer to customer experience and innovation too often leant towards the nice to have or the things that are in the delight category for customers, rather than those things that really deliver customer value. We have written about his before in our “Shiny iPad Syndrome” articles. The tendency to look to technology as a Silver Bullet over those things that customers truly value. Customers value things like, returning calls when promised, not having to wait online for 10 mins or being able to log in quickly and easily.
In this environment, now more than ever, Organisations need a structured approach to really understanding their customer needs and working across the business to profitably deliver it.
When thinking about your new product iteration or service improvement ask yourself how you might:
- Help people feel good about themselves when a salary reduction or concerning financial position has undermined their confidence
- Help them feel more in control in a world where too many things feel out of control
- Help them find comfort in the simple things in life
- Help them with increased transparency in a world which is increasingly opaque
- Help them feel fairly treated when they feel the pressure of managing changing circumstances
At this time it has never been more important to be clear on being brilliant at understanding your customers and working on your Value Proposition so you can present it in a way that your customers truly value. At this time, we have to work harder to make a sale, we will have to go to greater efforts to keep our customers. We will have to inject real energy to ensure we maintain our revenues.
As we said at the outset of this article, understanding your customers better than your competitors has always been important, its just that now, it is more important than ever. If you would like to understand the 9 Steps we take to underpin the Creation of any Successful Growth Plan, click on the image below and download our 9 Steps to truly understanding your customers.
If you would like to learn how to build out or improve your Value Proposition for your customers, members, clients or even internal Sales staff, click here to go to our page - Smarter Value Propositions for Smarter Organisations.
