You Must Know Your Customer for Your Company to Succeed
In business, there’s a lot of lip service paid to meeting customer needs.
You’ll hear about it in strategy. You’ll hear about it in marketing. You’ll hear about it in sales.
But all too often, when it comes down to executing, companies choose to follow their own interests instead.
They build the product they think their customers want.
They develop marketing collateral that’s focused on their company instead of solving customer problems.
They push the offer that has the highest margins or the most open capacity.
And what happens?
The product doesn’t fly off the shelves. The marketing doesn’t seem to resonate. The sales pitch works in the moment but leaves customers feeling oversold.
Most of the time, companies aren’t intentionally setting out to work against their customers. The problem is that they’re unclear as to what their customers actually want.
You must get crystal clear about what your customers need—then find the way to provide it to them.
If you feel in the dark about how to best serve your customers, here are a few ideas to help you get started. These initiatives won’t require a massive budget, but they will take some work.
7 Ways You Can Best Serve Your Customers:
1. Look at what your competitors are selling and how they position themselves.
What can you hypothesize from their offers and messaging?
2. Talk to frontline employees who interact with customers on a regular basis.
What are their fears, concerns, and challenges? What solutions do they appreciate most?
3. Develop and maintain a few key customer relationships so you have a direct line to the people who pay for your products and services.
4. Conduct customer interviews.
These are great for producing testimonials and case studies as well.
5. Run customer satisfaction surveys.
Start with something simple like NPS, then solicit additional feedback.
6. Closely monitor what works and what doesn’t during the sales process.'
7. Dig into your marketing metrics—what messages seem to resonate based on the data?
Knowing your customer isn’t a one-and-done kind of project. It’s an ongoing effort to iterate, refine, and evolve as your customer base does.
But these are the people who buy from you, and you must care deeply about their success. Stick close to your customer, and you won’t go wrong.
P.S. If you need help developing a customer-centric strategy, we’re here to support you. Contact our consulting team to find out how.
