Want To Win In Business? Target Your Customer Needs

Focusing on customers to win more business isn’t a new thing. In fact we are all familiar with the ubiquitous phrase “The customer is always right”. It became a popular strategy (more of a gimmick really) for department stores to bring in more customers through the door.

While for a lot of department stores and businesses this often disingenuous approach worked for a while, today customers are much more savvy. Customers need and crave authenticity. In a recent survey, more than 90 percent of millennials indicated that authenticity is a determining factor in helping them choose which brand to support.

Some businesses are struggling to keep up and stay relevant.

In fact, fewer than half (49%) of the 4,100 marketing leaders across B2C and B2B brands surveyed, believe they are providing an experience completely aligned with their customers’ expectations.

So if you’re ready to gain an unfair advantage in your industry, keep on reading. I will show you a relatively simple method for aligning to your customer needs.

Understand Why Customers Need Are Important

Believe it or not, each of your customers has a human need. We all do. In fact, think about your own experiences – a visit to your favourite restaurant, your barber or your wealth advisor. Chances are, besides the expected great service they provide you, there is also a particular way they make you feel. And this is precisely why you keep coming back.

Sure, every provider and business is there to exchange a service for currency. But the reason you choose one provider over the competition is the connection, empowerment, control or independence you experience after dealing with them.

As Peter Drucker said, “profit is not the purpose of a business, but rather a test of its validity.” So how do you gain relevance with your customers?

Choose a Customer-Centric Approach

By now it’s understood that identifying and aligning with your customers is equally as important as being clear on what your brand stands for.

So how can your business align with your customer needs?

Firstly you need to consider and identify the subconscious human needs your customers could have. Then show them how your business will help them answer that need, or in other words, solve that problem.

Some of you may be familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid

More recently we have also come to understand that needs support each other and are not mutually exclusive. At the end of the day, we all hope to have met the basic physiological needs of food, water and shelter. 

For that reason, while I think the above pyramid is important, I tend to lean more towards Manfred Max-Neef Fundamental Needs Model, or at least a list with categories which I adapted from it.

Manfred Max-Neef Fundamental Needs Model

I group various human needs under four distinct categories – Freedom, Control, Connection, and Meaning. This list is by no means exhaustive, but I find it to be a great preliminary tool to discover and explore customer’s authentic experiences. You can download the worksheet I use when working with clients to identify these, which also includes other valuable branding exercises.

Start By Putting Yourself In Your Customer’s Shoes

I want you to really picture your customer/s and ask:

• What do they look like?
• What keeps them up at night?
• Define their challenges?
• What do they like?
• Something that makes them feel good?
• How do they define success?
• What role does your brand play in creating that success for them?

Then from your customers perspective, think about what is the subconscious human need they could have. Reference the table above and list 3-4 of those main human needs which you strongly feel your customers seek to experience from your brand or service.

Granted these are somewhat speculative and subjective. Once you feel that your business is ready to implement a customer-centric approach in a more strategic and measured way, you will need to employ marketing research tools like surveys and focus groups. It always helps to validate your assumptions in order to make more informed business decisions down the track.

However even this simple practice of exploring and discovering your customer needs will still give you a tremendous advantage over any business that doesn’t consider them.

Make Customer Needs Work For You

When exploring the needs and wants your customer may have, avoid the expected needs. For example for a medical service, it’s a given that your customers will have a need for ‘care’.

Discovering your customer needs is a useful exercise to run as a workshop with key stakeholders and/or partners. You can do this on your own or enlist the help of a consultancy/branding agency.

Once you have established your top 3-4 customer needs, the next step is to identify the ways in which your business can help answer each need by bringing value. Implementing actionable and measurable processes with your employees and team for fulfilling those needs in each interaction, will make a real difference to your business success.

Ultimately, the customer may not always be right, but they always have the right to choose. And as we’ve learned, customers will always choose a brand that cares about them, answering their human needs.

Did you like this article? Know someone it could help? Don’t forget to share it with them! And, once you’ve completed this process, don’t forget to share your wins by dropping me a line at studio@studeo.com.au