Customers
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Engaging your customers with the right strategies and tactics will be the next most important thing in the business excellence journey.
Engaging customers today is totally different from 10 years ago. Today, with the rise of the Internet, it has really changed how companies interact with their customers.
Designing and customizing your strategy and action plan for specific customers segments is going to be the key way to do things going forward.
This is because of new empirical studies that show us that creating different “Customers Personas” will be instrumental to help us understand their behaviors and as such, to be able to understand their emotions and decisions making process.
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For this section, you will realize we are using “GREEN” for the Tables. This is deliberate and a link to the concept of “Cultivation”.
Using the Bonsai Tree as an example, it takes patience and skills to groom and cultivate the Bonsai Tree and make it a world class winner in art and form and design.
In similar note, we also need to cultivate our customers relationship so that we can have a long term relationship with them.
Aligned to this concept will be that of CLV – which means “Customers Lifetime Value”. If we serve our customers well, we will be able to have a long term relationship resulting in better sales results in the long run.
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Customers Past |
Customers Today |
Customers Future |
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Overview |
No accessibility to information. The lack of Internet means that most customers are not able to research info easily about the companies they are buying from. They are also not able to find out alternatives suppliers easily. This gives most companies a form of power over their customers.
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Able to assess information at their fingertips using the internet. Knowledge is power and as such, they will be more discerning on their choices and also know their rights and options. They are more than happy to let their fingers and wallet do the talking by buying from the service providers that they are most comfortable with.
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Will truly be king, welding significant over the success of companies selling to them. Information will be readily available to them to help them make choices. Analytics will allow them to know which suppliers provide the best product at the best price. At this stage, companies will have to be very creative in selling to their customers. |
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Buying Behavior |
Buy with convenience and proximity in mind. Do not have much bargaining power over the suppliers.
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Uses the internet to research and buy stuff. Also rely on WOM (Word of Mouth) recommendations from their friends or people they respect to help them decide what and who to buy from.
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Primarily uses mobile technology to buy and transaction. Convenience is a given. Smart chips embedded in their arms will allow them to pay for products easily. It will also trigger in-store customers engagement devices that is able to track their buying behavior through past data analytics.
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Challenges |
Creating good quality products and providing good service to engage with their customers.
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How to integrate Real World Marketing with Online Digital Marketing. How to collect Big Data to help them understand the customers better.
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How to go beyond product and service to truly engage with their customers. How to develop niche marketing using technology to better serve their customers. |
Benefits of doing this Phase
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There is a wise saying “If you don’t take care of your customers, somebody else will”.
This will sum up what we are trying to do over here.
One of the main best practice of all successful and fast growing companies is this : they all have a customized strategy to reach out to and engage with their customers, to build loyalty and to upsell their products or services. They learn how to truly care for their customers. |
Customers Hacks
Customers Relationship Building is Not Simple
Basically humans being human, engaging with them is never the same day in and day out. Even couples who are married or dating will go through ups and downs in their life journey, what more a customer who does not view you in the same light as their life partner. They will be more quick to judge, less forgiving and more demanding.
Hack # 1 : Use the Resources in this portal (video trainings, templates, training materials and notes, PDF and ebooks etc)
We have trainings on how to engage with your customers by understanding their personas and buying behaviors.
Hack # 2 : Keep listening and act on the feedback given
The internet and technology allows companies to use analytics to study the customers they serve, how they respond to various marketing campaigns and promotions as well as feedback for the products and services they purchased. Many of these data crunching tools are free or come at a fairly affordable price point. So it is no more an excuse not to use them now.
Hack # 3 : Do a Win Win Strategy
Do not just have a conversation with the customers. Use the opportunity to create more sales opportunities. In our online training, we will share with you some strategies we have used to engage with our customers, get their feedback, build goodwill and boost sales at the same time.