Why it’s Critical to Understand Your Customers’ New World
A number of my most sacred and long-held daily routines and activities have, over the past few months, changed and been replaced with a new set of behaviours which are now commonplace; the gym, cooking and cleaning, working from home, holidaying, entertainment and the like. My new choices serve me better and are here to stay.
Our customers’ world is also rapidly changing; how they live, work and socialise. Even though we’ve all gone through this crisis together, I do not believe or dare to presume that all experiences are one and the same. Each of us has been impacted differently.
In a LinkedIn conversation on this topic one contributor commented, “We look inwards in times of change, but there’s a valid point here on how we need to keep talking to our customers, even more in the current climate.”
The Challenges
And herein lies the challenge over this period. To keep their doors open or to get operational after the shutdown, organisations have applied rapid decision making to ensure the physical and emotional safety of stakeholders, to get employees working from home and to manage a myriad of financial and business challenges; this activity has been inwardly focused to enable the delivery of products and services.
66% of customer leaders believe that new growth opportunities rest on their organisation’s
ability to match their products and services to consumer needs
During this period customer attitudes and behaviours, their needs, goals and expectations, have rapidly changed. Our research* with CCO, CXO and CMO’s on leadership during the crisis, shows that 66% of customer leaders believe that new growth opportunities rest on their organisation’s ability to match their products and services to new consumer needs.
25% of CX and Marketing leaders have re-analysed their customer segments to understand
their customers’ new world
However, only 25% of CX and Marketing leaders have re-analysed their customer segments to understand their customers’ new world; their context, mindset and the influences impacting their decisions and behaviours.
New Opportunities
Customer experiences are a complex journey of interactions and emotions that arise from customers solving problems, interacting with products and services and finding ways to get the job done.
The experiences we have, shape our attitudes, thinking and behaviour. How we interact with the brands we bring into our lives, our customer experiences, impact how we feel and make a difference in our world.
Experiences are what we share with our family and friends
Our customers’ experiences are inherently human. Experiences are how we feel and what we remember; they are the key moments in our lives and the basis for the stories we share with family and friends.
New opportunities lie in deeply understanding our customers’ new context, mindset and influences – in knowing our customer new needs, goals and problems they’re trying to solve.
Next Steps
Critically, CX and Marketing leaders need a sharp focus on understanding what’s missing in their customers’ new world and then matching their organisation’s capabilities, products and services to meet new needs.
This is customer empathy at work; customer understanding and perspective taking applied to thinking, problem solving and decision making for the good of customers, employees and the business.
New Masterclass
My NEW masterclass shows you how to use customer empathy to unlock new opportunities for growth. In the masterclass I’ll cover:
1. Using empathy to understand your customers’ world; their needs, goals and expectations
2. How to understand the new moments that matter in your customers’ experience
3. Unlocking new opportunities to pivot your marketing and CX strategy
We’ll also have an in-depth discussion on:
4. How customer experience insight delivers new competitive advantage
5. How to unite and align your teams with a new-world customer perspective to get everyone responding quickly
6. Why the success or failure of digitizing brand touchpoints will be dependent on knowing the moments that matter to customers
ALSO, when you attend my masterclass you’ll receive a complimentary copy of my latest book, Customer Empathy.
Find out more and register using this link: https://alexallwood.com.au/unlock-growth/
Hope you can join me this coming Wednesday June 8 at 4pm.
*Research: Leadership in the Crisis Economy 06/20.