HOW CAN WE KNOW WHAT IS VALUABLE FOR OUR CUSTOMERS?

One of the most extended mistakes from a company’s point of view is to communicate a set of attributes linked to the commercialized product without researching whether their customers value those attributes or not. 

Understanding what they value seems to be the first step in delivering customer value. A company may think that its offering has a very attractive value to the consumer but they don’t perceive it like that. In this case, all their efforts will not produce a positive response from the consumer point of view. It is important to know the consumer profile and what characteristics are more valuable for them. As stated by the Marketing Donut, understanding customers is the key to giving them good service and therefore, deliver better customer value. They identify three main ways to better understand customers:

1.       Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.

This point requires to take a hard look at the main touchpoints between customers and your company. Customers expect you to deliver what has been promised but also surpass their expectations. Being able to do so will increase customer value and therefore word-of-mouth recommendations.

2.       Collect and analyse data.

Understanding comes from constant refinement of data. A company’s database holds valuable information about customers that will enable to understand and anticipate their needs. CRM systems can help to identify customers’ needs by analysing their behaviour and preferences.

3.       Ask them what they think.

Not everyone complains, instead, they will tell their friends about their bad experience. It is essential to act proactively to discover what you are doing wrong. Conducting a customer satisfaction survey to gain valuable insights. It is important to tell them what the company has changed as a result of their feedback, it will make them feel valued.

To make things worse, knowing what your customers value the most is not enough, suppliers must have the capability to anticipate what customers will value in the future because it is constantly changing. The American Marketing Association identifies the following methods to anticipate customer's needs within a company’s offering:

1.       Direct measurement of needs and benefits: A survey research is conducted with large batteries of items, such as explicit indicators of current and future needs. Customers can be divided into groups according to the similarity of their profile of needs.

2.       Problem detection: Since it is easier that customers say what’s wrong with a company rather than what they want, this technique measures problems experienced instead of needs themselves.

3.       Information acceleration: This method tries to bring the future into the present. To understand customer response to a future environment they stimulate this alternative environment and measure response to them.

4.       Historic trend analysis/forecasting the future: Using knowledge of the past to bear to infer in the future. It uses customer behaviour of the past to build future business designs. The problem is that customers not always behave in the same way.

5.       Lead user analysis: They assume future reactions looking at people whose behaviour appears to be leading indicators of the future customers.



Okay, now that we know that customer value is constantly changing, what can a company do to overcome this situation? It looks like the solution is INNOVATION.

Customer Think presents innovation as a “New” Value Creation tool, it is described as a crucial process for any company to survive in a competitive market. To be truly innovative, the invention needs to create economic value, and it can be done in the following ways:

• Adding a new feature to a product (value = increase sales)
• Improving process to reduce waste (value = reduced costs)
• Creating a new product (value = penetrate new markets)

Until now, everything seems to be in the company’s hands, but I will analyse different sources to discover whether customer value resides on companies or customers.