Business Bites: Meeting customers’ needs

“You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes” (author unknown)

Focus on what’s important to the customer to draw them in

When talking about products and services on offer in your business, it is all too easy to get wrapped up in the technical jargon and what you believe those products and services offer. But in reality, the customer doesn’t really care how they benefit you and your business, or about the marketing spiel that came with the products. Customers really only care about the benefits that products and services can offer to them.

Your customer is looking for relief from a problem, and that’s what they want you to provide. Customers will buy benefits, or bundles of benefits, and not features of products and services. They will not buy products; they will buy what those products can do for them and their problem.

This then raises a question about how you may define categories of products and services: are they categorised around technical attributes or are they categorised around customer needs?

Here’s a non-optical example for you to consider:
• A manufacturer makes potato crisps
• The retailer merchandises salty snacks
• The customer buys lunch (to satisfy hunger)

Your customers are not homogeneous, they will all be different and have individual needs. This means that you may need to think about the segments of customer groups and how you can fulfil the needs of each segment. Segments may include needs for protective eyewear for sport, protective eyewear for work, relief from sun and UV, assistance in using screens for long periods, the list goes on.

Essentially, it would be appropriate to use benefit segmentation for products and services as this is how a customer will look for the appropriate solutions.

As a little exercise, think about the ‘crisps’ example above and then apply the same logic to the use of OCT in your practice: what would be important to the customer? Focus on that and not why it helps your business.

So how will any of this help your business?

Apart from the obvious points already stated about fulfilling the customer’s needs and solving their problems, which will help to build loyalty to your business, there are more marketing benefits to consider.

For example, word-of-mouth as a marketing tool cannot be underestimated. Your satisfied customers will tell their family and friends about your ability to fix their issues through a focused solution. These same customers may even go online through social media and tell a wider audience how great your business is. It is also increasingly likely that they will go onto ‘review’ websites to leave a formal review of your business. But beware, this can work in the opposite way if they feel that their needs were not met and/or they received a poor service.

This may seem unfair, but it is worth pointing out that the only arbiters of how well requirements have been met or satisfied are the customers themselves.

Keep your offer fresh and attractive to all types of customers

Changing needs

In reality, the market is in a constant state of shift in terms of new competitors, old competitors with new propositions, new ways of buying, and in addition customers also have changing needs and are likely more demanding than ever.

The need to constantly review your offering (products and services) is highly important so as not to allow your competitors get an edge. Each product or service has a limited life until a new or better one comes along. There is a well-known product lifecycle that explains how products go through the stages of:
1. Introduction
2. Growth
3. Maturity
4. Decline

There is a requirement to keep your offer fresh so that you don’t end up with an assortment of products in decline and you need to keep looking for the next and new opportunities/products. This doesn’t necessarily need to be a ‘big bang’ change and you may decide to review and replace on a more continuous basis and introduce smaller improvements. This is similar to the manufacturing principle of Kaizen.

In the Psychology Today article ‘Consumer Behaviour’ we hear: “In a crowded marketplace, anyone hoping to sell a product or service will need to stand out. To succeed at this, marketers often turn to psychological research to identify and target their most likely consumers, grab their attention, and convince them that a product will fill a specific need or otherwise better their life. Aiming to inform and persuade consumers – rather than manipulate them – is widely considered to be the most ethical approach and is likely to help build brand loyalty more than cheap marketing tricks.”

Finding your niche

What is a niche? “A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that it is intended to target. It is also a small market segment. Sometimes, a product or service can be entirely designed to satisfy a niche market. The niche market is highly specialised and aiming to survive among the competition from numerous super companies” (source: Wikipedia).

In a highly competitive market, a focus on a limited section of the local market that is unique, profitable, and underserved by your competitors and not yet exploited by larger competitors is a good place to focus your business. Effectively seeking out untapped business potential.

For your business, carving out a niche market to position yourself as the ‘only place to go’ for a specific group of customers will help to establish your credibility over ‘generalists’ in the market. It will also assist in a more focused business and strategy. It allows you to focus your marketing and strategy efforts on those sections (niches) of your local market.

There are many examples of niche categories, too many to list in full, but a few examples may include:
• Handmade
• Eco-friendly
• Specific sports
• Wearable technology

Serve your customers well, and they will in turn serve your business well.