We spend a lot of time in business talking about knowing your customer.
It is good advice, but there is a problem if we treat knowing the customer as something we complete once and then file away in a marketing plan.
Your customer does not stand still.
Their circumstances change. Their expectations change. The way they research purchases changes. What they consider valuable changes. New alternatives enter the market. Things they were prepared to put up with five years ago may no longer be acceptable.
Meanwhile, it is remarkably easy for a business to keep operating on an old understanding of who its customer is and what they want.
You may still be serving the same broad market, but that does not mean the customer standing in front of you today is making decisions in the same way as the customer you met several years ago - even if it’s the same person.
What Are Your Customers Telling You?
Businesses collect customer information every day, although we do not always think of it as research.
- It is in the questions people ask before they buy.
- It is in the objections your sales team hears.
- It is in the reasons people give for not proceeding.
- It is in customer complaints, reviews, repeat purchases and requests for things you do not currently offer.
- It is also in what customers stop doing.
Perhaps they used to ring and now they email. Perhaps they used to be happy to wait several days for a quote and now expect an answer much sooner. Maybe price was once the first question and today they are more concerned about availability, certainty or how quickly you can solve the problem.
Each interaction gives you information. It might appear small. It might be just information. Or, it might inform of aspects vital to the well being of your business.
The value comes from stepping back occasionally and asking what those pieces are telling you together.
Listen to the Questions That Have Changed
Think about the sales conversations you are having now compared with a few years ago.
- Are customers asking different questions?
- Are different objections appearing?
- Are people taking longer to make a decision, or are they expecting to make it faster?
- Are they arriving with more information because they have researched you and your competitors before making contact?
- Has a product or service that used to attract attention become harder to sell?
These changes can be easy to dismiss individually. When the same pattern appears repeatedly, it deserves attention.
For example, if customers repeatedly ask whether a service can be delivered differently, the answer should not automatically be yes. You do not need to redesign the business around every request.
But you should learn why they are asking.
Perhaps expectations in the market have changed. Perhaps a competitor has introduced a different approach. Perhaps the customer's own working environment has changed and your old delivery method creates a problem that did not exist before.
Once you understand the reason, you can make an informed business decision rather than simply reacting to a request.
Do Not Confuse Your Assumptions With Customer Needs
One of the risks of being experienced in your industry is that you know a great deal about it.
That knowledge is useful, but it can also create assumptions.
You know why one option is technically better. You know which features matter. You know the language the industry uses.
The customer may be looking at the decision very differently.
They might care most about certainty. They may want somebody to explain the options clearly. They might be buying for the first time and not understand why the difference you consider obvious matters at all.
Understanding customers means understanding the decision from their position, not simply explaining the business from yours.
This is particularly important when you have long-term customers. Familiarity can make us assume we know what they value.
Ask them.
- Why do they continue to buy from you?
- What has become more important to them?
- What causes frustration?
- What would make dealing with your business easier?
You may find that the reason customers stay is not the reason you think.
Customer Change Affects More Than Marketing
When customer behaviour changes, businesses often treat it as a marketing issue. Sometimes it is. Your message, channels or content may need to change. But customer change can affect much more than promotion.
It can affect opening hours, payment options, product mix, delivery, staffing, sales processes, technology, communication and after-sales service.
If customers increasingly expect faster turnaround, for example, changing the advertising to promise speed does not solve anything if your internal processes can’t deliver it.
The customer experience is produced by the whole business.
That means the information you learn from customers needs to travel beyond the marketing department or the person answering enquiries.
Your operations team may need it. Your salespeople certainly need it. Product development, customer service and leadership all need to understand what is changing.
Decide What Matters to Your Business
Paying attention to customers does not mean following every trend.
Businesses get into trouble when they mistake movement in the market for an instruction to chase it.
The useful process is to understand what has changed, decide whether it matters to the customers you want to serve and then consider what the business should do about it.
Some changes will require action.
Others will not.
You might discover a customer segment no longer fits the direction of the business. You may decide not to compete on speed because your value lies elsewhere. You might deliberately keep a service personal when competitors automate it because your customers value that contact.
The important thing is that it is a decision, not an accident.
Keep Learning
Knowing your customer is not a paragraph in a business plan that remains true indefinitely.
Make customer learning part of the way you evaluate the business.
Review enquiries. Talk to the sales team. Look at complaints and compliments. Pay attention to repeat business. Ask customers why they chose you and, where you can, find out why somebody chose not to.
Then connect that information back to what you are trying to achieve.
- Are you still solving a problem customers care about?
- Are you making it easy for them to buy and work with you?
- Are your assumptions about value supported by what customers actually do?
The business does not need to change every time a customer changes their mind.
It does need to notice when the market it serves is moving.
The better you understand what your customers need now, the better decisions you can make about what your business needs to do next.
If you are looking for practical support to help you plan, make decisions and move your business forward, take a look inside the Business Wisdom Vault. I’ve brought together business resources, tools and guidance you can use to work through the challenges and opportunities in your own business and decide what needs attention next.
