Customers do not seek your products
Your customers do not come to you for your products/services. They are there to fulfil their needs. Incidentally, at that moment, your product seems best fit to fulfil their needs. And then when they come across a better product, they leave you. Should that be a surprise to you? I think not.
When did you last talk to your customers to understand their needs and their changing preferences about meeting their needs? When were you products designed? How do you know they continue to meet your customers’ needs? And what are their needs, by the way? Is it the same when you onboard them 10 years ago? Are you still using ‘life-styling’ to assess their changing needs? Customers’ needs are ever-changing. And the pace is faster than ever. I have been in a number of discussions when a 70 year old has approached the bank for a loan to fuel his travel needs, or a 18 year old seeking advice on retirement fund in order to retire by 40. Does it sound familiar? If so, then at the last you are in touch with the Voice of Customer. And if this seems fanciful, you need to step out and start your conversations with your customers. Today. Now. With whatever is left of your customer base.
In the digital age, customer do NOT seek products; they seek fulfilment of their needs in the best possible way. And you need to redesign your products/services to meet their expectations. You can no longer afford to entice a customer (or retain them) through advertising spend. You customers have in their command a device which has perhaps more intelligence than your legacy systems. Simply because their demands and needs are fuelled by the new age analytics. A smartphone, backed by cloud based analytics is keeping track of each and every moment of your clients and are able to suggest them products/services/experiences which they had not thought of. Till then.
On the other hand, you barely know your customer (given the fragmented information that you have across your organisation), you cannot track a customer’s journey through your own ecosystem and you yourself suspect the data that you hold about your customers.
How do you address the needs of your customers who have developed new tastes, have experienced new desires and now are not willing to compromise on their experiences? They no longer fit within your segmentation models and certainly do not behave like the profile you have typecast them into.
You need to rethink your entire proposition. Why would a customer continue to be with you? How have their needs changed? What have you got to offer to their changing demands? How do they compare against your competition (and mind you, your competitors may not be within your industry segment)? Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and walk that mile. And walk again. And again. Only then you may realise what your customers go through while engaging with you. Do you LIKE it? Would you do that again? If not, it's high time, you need to redraw your customer journey. Do it once. Test it out. Refine it. Test it again. If you like it, take it to your customers. Do they like it? If not, change it and refine it till they give you a thumbs up.
Having a great customer journey is just the beginning. Review your organisation structure. Is it structured around your customer journeys? Does it help identify an in-journey customer? Does it help identify opportunities for engagement with an in-journey customer? Does it help short-circuit a customer journey by proactively identifying their needs and redirecting them to a customised journey? If not, you need to review your operating model.
Remember, your business operating model holds the key to your future sustenance in the market. Get it right. And then, your customers would no longer seek your product, but will be with you for the sheer experience that you deliver to them. Every time.
