Knowing your Customers #1
6 Strategies to help you Research, Interpret & Process information about your Customers.
from MicroSoft.com/Business, enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4.biz 3/13
Even more so in the Information Age, “Knowledge is Power”. Nowhere might that maxim be more applicable than it is with your customers. But recognizing the essential value of customer information, is a good ways off from the other side of the formula — what to look for, how to gather it, what it means, and how to be sensitive to privacy issues and know when enough is enough. Here are six (6) strategies to help you research, interpret and handle information about your customers in the most effective manner possible.
1. Get to know where they are coming from. This may sound like a clichéd ’60s throwback, but it’s anything but. Rather, it’s essential to understand where, in fact, your Customers are coming from. What are their demographics and income ranges? Do they live in particular locations? What is it about their makeup that is prompting them to choose you over someone else? The answers to those telling queries can go a long way to getting a firm feel for the motivations of the people who buy from your company. “What you must know is the migration patterns of your customers,” says Scott Gross, author of Positively Outrageous Service. “Get to know where they’re coming from and why and, just as important, who they will patronize instead if they decide to leave.”
2. Learn their Motives for buying your product. Part of breaking down customer motivations is gaining a sense of the real drive behind their buying choices. One way to approach this is to get them to describe their Choice process. Are they choosing your product or service, because they are reacting to some sort of problem they want corrected — or to achieve something more pro-actively? The answer can speak volumes of why they’re coming to you and what you need to target to solidify that appeal.” Is it more motivating for the customer to prevent something — like stopping waste — or to attain something like increased productivity?” says Shelle Rose Charvet, author of Words That Change Minds. “You need to know that kind of motivation so that you meet their unstated psychological needs.”
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