Do You Understand Your Customers?

Do you understand your customers?

I know a lot of us will be tempted to quickly respond “Yes” to that. I know I was 👀.

A lot of the time, we assume we understand our customers while in actual sense, we are on two entirely different paths and communication looks like Lagos traffic on a rainy day. 

Understanding your customer is equally as important as product knowledge in any business. We have repeatedly established that the end goal of customer success is customer satisfaction. If you are able to preempt their need, know their pain point, their experience with the brand as well as their feedback. 

The needs of the customers can generally be classified into two parts; 

• The physical needs

• The psychological needs

Oftentimes, both the physical and psychological needs tend to overlap and are intertwined. Physical needs as the name implies are often visible and might not be difficult to identify and the solutions are known and direct. 

A typical example is a customer whose phone is not coming on. This is a physical problem and there are a number of ways to deal with it. They say a problem shared is a problem half solved. 

For the psychological needs, they are not easily detected and they also have more influence on the customers decisions unlike the physical needs. A typical example is the decision to buy an Android operating system phone over an iPhone operating system phone. While the physical need would be to fix a phone, the psychological needs would consider which of the operating systems meet the needs and satisfies their wants. 

Some common determining factors that influence the needs of the customers include:

• The availability of the product or service

• The price in relation to their budget

• Their social status and the social acceptance of the commodities

• Their previous personal experience with product or service

One important thing to note is that the customers' needs are numerous and if we are being honest, you cannot satisfy them all but that shouldn’t stop you from trying.

How to understand your customer

Here are some steps that can help you understand your customer better, keep them satisfied and make ambassadors of them:

1. Create a buyer's persona

This simply means to put or imagine yourself in the shoes (not the literal shoes, except you are a company that makes shoes) of the customer. If your target audience are women only, their needs could vary according to their age group. This method helps you keep your ideal customer in mind as you tailor your research towards their needs.

2. Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is the singular most powerful tool that is often overlooked and under utilised by many businesses. What better way to understand your customers than hearing directly from them. You can sample the opinions of the customers about current products and services, their likes and dislikes and what they would like to see done differently. There are several ways to do this, like sending out surveys, holding focus groups and tracking discussions across social media.

3. Know your competitors

In a market where you are not the only one offering the product you have, you should know your competitors as well as you know your name because they are a determining factor of your customers' relationship with your business. 

It is best that you know your competitors and go over and beyond in ensuring customer satisfaction because the moment your customer is dissatisfied with your business, they move on to the next.

The mantra here is “Go big or Go home!”

Let the needs of your customers be the force that drives you.

Cheers,

Seun