A business flourishes because of its customers. Customers play an important role in any business. They possess the power to see a company prosper or fall. Customers are the backbone of any business and can be considered one of the greatest assets to the business.
Don Peppers, an author and founding partner of customer-centric consultancy “Peppers & Rogers Group”, in one of his interviews stated :
“Everyone knows of course that only customers create value. You can create all the products in the world, you can have all the inventory in the world, but if you don’t have a customer, you don’t have a business.”
Even if you have made the world’s best product with the most amazing features, but you don’t have customers, your business eventually will not survive. To have a successful business tomorrow, business owners should always keep their customers on priority and should try to see the business through the eyes of the customer.
Happy customers lead to more money, growth, and sustainability. If you fail to take the customers’ views into account, it’s most likely that your business will not be successful. You should establish a long-term relationship with your customers. Once you win their hearts, it is very uncommon that they would search for any other option and not choose you. Try forming a good customer strategy.
Customers always have a choice, not an obligation, to do business with you. Give them reasons to choose you among many of your competitors already present in the market. Engage with them. Treat them nicely, so that they feel heard and involved in the process.
But at the same time, involving customers is not about jumping to respond to every request and suggestion. Not everything can be done and therefore it is very important to select the doable things. Involving customers in product management is about knowing when this should be direct, and when to use other tools to represent their needs. For building a better product, it is important to allow customers into product management at the right time.
Knowing your customers is the most important job in a business. When you have an idea of who they are and what they need, businesses can develop products and services that are tailored to help customers solve their problems more effectively. If you’re not creating offerings based on customer needs, you may not be able to sell them.
So, the 10 most important things one should know about its customers to build your understanding of your customers’ needs are:
If you sell directly to individuals, find out your customer’s gender, age, and occupation. For example, are they small private companies or big multinationals? Knowing this can help you identify similar businesses that you could target.
In case you are directly selling your product to an individual, it is important to know about the gender, age, family, status, occupation, personality, triggers, and motivators of your customer. If you sell to other businesses, find out what industry they are in, their size, and the kind of business they are. Knowing this can help you identify similar businesses that you could target.
If you sell directly to individuals, it is important to know their occupations, job titles, where they work, hours, roles, goals, and interests. If you sell to other businesses, it helps to have an understanding of what their business is trying to achieve.
If you know why customers buy a product or service, it’s easier to match their needs to the benefits your business can offer. The reason may be for experience, learning, investment, personal or business purpose.
Knowing the right time of buying is important for any business. If you approach a customer just at the time they want to buy, it will massively increase your chances of success. The various times to buy can be during holidays, weekends, after-hours, business hours, school hours, etc.
Are they buying your product face to face, or online using your website, or over a phone call? Also keep a note about the mode of payment, like a credit card, cash, debit card, etc.
This step involves knowing your customer’s annual salary, revenue, allocated budgets, etc. You’ll be more successful if you can match what you’re offering to what you know your customer can afford. Premium, higher-priced products are unlikely to be successful if most of your customers are on a limited budget. This is the case unless you can identify new customers with the spending power to match.
Why do customers feel like buying from you? If you know what makes them choose you, you can serve them in the way they prefer. values, education, collecting, validation
It is important to know about the customer’s pain points, objections, issues, position, funds, time, and resources.
What are their expectations about the quality, authority, delivery, value, personal, professional terms, etc? For example, if your customers expect reliable delivery and you don’t disappoint them, you stand to gain repeat business.
If you know how your customers view your competitors, chances are that you stay ahead of them. So your competitor’s quality, authority, delivery, value, personal, and professional terms, according to your customers, can be an advantage for your business.
The answers to these ten things about your customer to create products and services can be used in offerings that your customers are looking for.
This information can be used to implement strong marketing messages and engage more of the right customers using targeted marketing delivery. These insights will also give you an idea of where you should be focused, at what times, and how you should be delivering content in those spaces.
It is impossible to run your business without your customers as they are the lifeblood of your business. If you have not tried this for your business yet, take note of these questions and try collecting the answers and see how quickly your pitch, your marketing, your offerings, and your business change because of it.
