Find out how understanding your customers’ unique needs can help you deliver a truly personalised engagement and boost loyalty, sales and revenue
Imagine a world where you knew exactly what people were thinking? What would you do with this information and how would it help you in your work, life and relationships? In the movie, What Women Want, Mel Gibson’s character Nick Marshall gets a whole new outlook on life following a lighting moment – quite literally – which gives him the ability to read women’s minds.
At first, this “gift” overloads him with information which he has no idea how to process, but he soon realizes that he can put it to good effect. Nick thinks he is a charming popular person and has no idea that his colleagues think otherwise, but when he starts listening to their thoughts, he gets a real understanding of their needs and feelings and as a result begins to develop better relationships with his colleagues and friends.
So what if you knew what your customers were thinking? Ask yourself this: when a customer contacts you, do you already have an idea of what they want? Do you know how they feel about your brand? If not, why not? Whilst you might not be able to read their minds you may already have a wealth of information about their behaviour and preferences which could ultimately help you to understand your customers, anticipate their needs and deliver a more personalised experience.
This series reviews how organisations can gather insights on users, predict their needs, know how and where to contact them and ultimately deliver a more personalised service.
From the moment they interact with you, your customers give you an insight into what they want. These days they interact with your brand in so many different ways and part with a lot of personal information along the way. In the movie, Nick is surprised that his female friends and colleagues expect him to know what they want. Your customers expect that too. You have all the information you need, they’ve told you many times!
At a time when competition is rife across the board and with so many companies looking to increase sales and customer retention, how can businesses take a leaf from Nick Marshall’s book and achieve that lightning bolt moment?
Channelling out the noise
Being able to listen to ALL your customers’ thoughts, as Nick found out in the movie, can be overwhelming. Where should you start? What should you be listening out for and how can you channel out any background noise?
A starting point would be to ensure that you have the right feedback mechanism in place. Only when you truly understand your customers are you really able to personalise every interaction and deliver what they really want.
By capturing information from your customer interactions, whether via phone, online, social media or email, and equipping your employees with a single detailed view of all their recent interactions, online behaviour and purchase history, you will have the knowledge and understanding to deliver a more personalised and connected experience.
Delivering what customers want
Thinking of ways to make customers feel special begins with the ability to gather and interpret the right information to ensure you understand them better and crucially find out what they want. In these times of change and rapid digital development, it’s more important than ever to serve the needs of an increasingly demanding customer base. Doing so will allow organisations to boost customer engagement and retention and better compete in an increasingly fierce market.
In part two, we deep dive into multi-channel communications and how businesses can provide a consistent customer experience reaching them in the right place at the right time.
