Newsletter August 20, 2024

Imagine this: you’re sitting comfortably at your desk, feeling confident that your customers are satisfied and loyal. I mean what’s not to love?

Meanwhile, lurking out there somewhere, a competitor is proactively listening to your customers to figure out how to tempt them away with better deals, personalized service, or simply a shinier experience. Scary, right? But it’s a reality in today’s hyper-competitive business world, where customer choices are as abundant as cat videos on the internet.

I’ve personally talked to over 125,000 of my clients’ customers. I learned a long time ago that customers are not always right. They are often wrong. Sometimes mind-numbingly wrong. Many are confused about what they really believe; they certainly don’t know what they don’t know.

But it’s not their job to be right; it’s our jobs as marketers to first understand where they are coming from so we can get to work interpreting and translating what they teach us into better products, services, and experiences.

They aren’t buying what you may think you are selling them. They are hiring you to solve their problems, fulfill their needs, and make their lives better.

Whatever you market and sell, you’re in the life improvement business.

How can you help your customers live the lives they want and still profit in the process? By reorienting your thinking around “jobs to be done” instead of “products to be sold.” When you shift your thinking to being hired to do jobs, it’s no longer just a product or service for sale; it’s improving lives. The secret to successfully acquiring and retaining customers is to intimately understand their goals, frustrations, and obstacles in life.

Here’s Jobs to be Done (JTBD) theory in a nutshell: it’s like hiring a taxi to take you somewhere. You don’t choose a taxi because of its color or brand; you choose it because you need to get from point A to point B. In the same way, customers “hire” products and services to accomplish specific tasks or solve problems in their lives. By focusing on the job customers need done, businesses can create products that truly fulfill those needs, just as a taxi gets you to your destination efficiently.

In other words, help solve their problems by moving them from pain to gain.

Customer insight is the foundation of any successful business strategy. It involves collecting and analyzing data about your customers’ preferences, behaviors, and needs to understand them better and anticipate their future demands.

In a hyper-competitive world, where customers have an abundance of choices, customer insight is more important than ever. Businesses that fail to understand their customers risk losing them to competitors who are more attuned to their needs. By gaining a deeper understanding of your customers, you can create personalized experiences that resonate with them and foster long-term loyalty.

If you aren’t doing this work yet, I suggest you start:
Using surveys to gather feedback from your customers.
Monitoring social media, a goldmine of current customer information, feedback, and frustration.
Interviewing customers frequently to learn why they do what they do.
Analyzing customers’ purchase history to uncover patterns and trends.
In a world where customers have countless options for where to do business, customer insight is more important than ever. Gather and leverage this valuable information to create personalized experiences that resonate with your customers and foster long-term loyalty.

Wisdom to Fuel Your Business Growth

Fight back! Never let your competitors steal your customers away – improve your customer insight and stay ahead of them. Get good at this and start stealing theirs. And remember, feeling comfortable can be a big trap. Stay curious and connected with your customers. Keeping them happy by improving their lives is always your best defense against the competition.