"Hello [Customer]... Nice to Meet You"

Originally published Jan 27, 2017 (edited)

"Don’t you know who I am?" Ah yes... the cry of the indignant celebrity when the host refuses to seat his party at the trendy, overcrowded restaurant. And inevitably, he knows lots of really, really important people, and he’s going to tell them all about how he was treated. No one will ever eat there again when he’s through, he screams at the top of his lungs. According to him, his words carry so much weight, the place might as well shut the doors right now!

It’s kind of a funny scene to picture, the apoplectic, self-important politician, news personality, or actor berating the poor, lowly restaurant employee, eyes bulging out of his head and veins pulsing as though he’s about to burst. We can laugh at the thought, primarily because the likelihood of encountering such a situation as local small business owners is rather small (to be fair, though, if it happened to us, though, we probably wouldn’t find it so amusing... okay, maybe a little).

There’s a serious question for us in this little scenario, however. Just who is walking through our doors? What do we know about our customers? When they get inside, are they getting what they want? We'd like them to come back, of course, and people do talk to each other as well, even if their networks don’t comprise the most influential people in the world. Their connections are potential customers, and what they say (or don’t say) matters. So, it’s critical that when our customers come in, we’re delivering.

We can use things like post-sale customer satisfaction surveys, but they don’t always tell us that much, and they’re largely reactive – they help us address problems after the fact. If we’re concerned about delivering the first time and every time thereafter, we need to be detailed and, to the extent possible, proactive. We need to understand exactly who’s likely to come to us, what they want, and what will keep them coming back, and design an experience that ensures their demands are satisfied.

We can't, of course, cater to every single whim of a diverse audience. What we can do is find out who our typical customers are, what they’re interested in, how they make decisions, their preferences, and so much more. This allows us to develop profiles (“personas”) describing the attributes of the main customer segments we serve, creating detailed pictures of people representing key groups—both current and future. We can also map their journeys, or how they progress from contact to conversion to return.

This is a wealth of information, and we can use it to better communicate who we are and what we do, reach the right audiences, customize the products and services we offer, and tailor the customer experience once they’re interacting with us. In other words, we can draw more people to us and give them what they want when they get there. It gets us away from the “one-offs” and reactive "fixes" based on complaints and helps build a satisfied clientele that keeps coming back, tells friends, and leaves positive reviews.

All of this is super, but how? We're clearly not having coffee with everyone who is or might one day be a customer to learn their stories, needs, wants, likes, dislikes, etc.  It takes a little bit of market research—an investment, to be sure, but one that pays off handsomely. Starting with current customer analytics, surveys outside of their interactions with us, and/or focus groups allows us to approach more people like them. Expanding these efforts to larger portions of the public can help us find untapped new segments.

If you want to grow your current customer base and expand to new markets, be smart about it. You should know who you’re catering to, where to talk to them and what it takes to bring them to your business, how to them to pull out the credit card or click “buy,” and how to deliver so they’re satisfied, they return, and they "pass it on." It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have—retail, restaurants, entertainment, hospitality, or "other!" Everyone can understand and create a great experience for their customers. 

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Contact us for more information. We can help you get started on the path to meeting your customers and giving them exactly what they need so your business will thrive.