What do your customers really want? You need to know, right?
We all want to know how our customers use our products or services, and what they really want from us. This can help to get the most out of your business and go a step further with your offering.
Values
People buy from people. If customers know your values and align with these, they are more likely to invest in you, use your services and buy your products.
Something you should provide to your customers is honesty and transparency. People want to know what they're getting upfront and don't want any nasty surprises. You should explain clearly in any of your advertisements and in conversations with your customers exactly what they should expect from you.
Something we do at Cone to alleviate any surprises is we work on a fixed-fee basis. This means that all of our clients know what they will be paying as soon as they come on board with us, and this price doesn't increase based on the amount of time needed for us to deliver each service.
Customer involvement
Getting feedback is a great way to be open with your customers and get real feedback from the people who actually use your product/service.
There are different methods to gain feedback, such as questionnaires and NPS scores.
NPS (Net Promotor Score) measures customer experience and predicts business growth. NPS' split customers into "promoters" who provide ratings of 9 or 10, "passives" who provide ratings of 7 or 8, and "detractors" who provide ratings of 6 or lower.
A calculation is then drawn that involves subtracting the proportion of detractors from the proportion of promoters to provide the scores, which typically range from -100 to +100. To give an example of this, if 10% of respondents are detractors, 20% are passives and 70% are promoters, your NPS score would be 70-10 = 60. The higher the score is, the better the feedback.
As well as gathering satisfaction results, you could also use questionnaires for feedback on specific products, or to get input on new business ideas.
What do you really need to supply?
Price & Quality
Customers ultimately want value for money. If a product or service is costly, it should be of high quality. Alternatively, customers may expect a low-quality product if the cost is low.
Choice
Giving your customers choice is another important need to fulfil. You should offer your customers a range of products/services, as everyone will have different requirements and preferences. A clothing shop may need a range of styles, as well as a range of sizes for all of those styles.
At Cone, we offer a choice of services based on client needs, budget, business size and many more factors; this gives many choices to create a bespoke package.
Convenience
Customers want things quickly, easily and with as little hassle as possible. (I mean, who doesn't?) The more convenient a service or product is for a client, the more they may be willing to pay for it. You might even offer convenient extras they didn't know they wanted or needed, and are now receiving more buy-in (win-win!)
What’s next?
After establishing your values, getting feedback from customers and finding out what they really want, take a look at how to utilise what you are offering and level up your business.
Can you offer more to your customers, such as adding products or services to your portfolio? Link this to the four customer needs; how can you make your clients' lives more convenient with your offering? Do you need to adjust your prices, and are you offering good quality? Do you offer a variety of products and services or do you need to add anything that your clients really need or want?
