If you want to succeed as a business owner or leader, you must place the customer's needs above all other needs.
As a business owner, you rely on sales to increase revenue. Who is the only party that guarantees your sales? The customer. The customer is an integral and central part of your business, like it or not. Your ability to discern what they prefer today will enable you to design and release a product, service, website, or user interface that assures them of ease and no complication.
Lots of the bestselling businesses today were able to maximize their profits through a careful study of their customers. They were able to learn what each customer, whether new or prospective, needed or wanted. A customer will only use or purchase your product/service (we’ll use product for the most part) if they determine it to be a real problem solver.
Does your company make problem-solving products?
If yes, do you revise your product’s design regularly to meet the ever-changing times? Aside from that, in how many channels are your products and services available?
As a business owner or company executive eager to drive sales upward, knowing your customer transcends the usual suspects—name, ages, and income group. Why not go deep into your customers' lives to learn things like their fun activities, celebration dates, preferences, and curiosities? By doing so, you outmatch your competitors and set up your business or company for a massive upswing.
Read on to learn more about how you can reposition your business as the type that prioritizes the customer over anything else.
How Consumer Psychology Can Benefit You
Like we stated above, if you want to increase sales which translates to bigger profits, you must understand that customer in ways that your competitors do not. To do this you must unlearn most of what you already know about the customer. Instead, ask—how does the customer decide which brand to patronize and what are their factors, if more than one, that influence their decision.
Consumer psychology has grown into a giant field that attracts attention from business owners, whether big or small and company heads. It entails the study of consumers’ feelings, notions, and sentiments, and how those factors induce their decision to make purchases.
A few of the many ways by which consumer psychology can uplift your relationship with the customer are:
- It enables you to draft and release relevant marketing campaigns to increase your client list.
- It allows you to develop actionable business strategies based on the results of your study on the customers.
- With this, you can design and release problem-solving products which separate you from the competition.
- You can also revise the existing products, including your web or e-commerce site. With an extensive study of your customers’ behavior, you can enhance your systems to give them fantastic satisfaction.
Questions about the Customer that You Must Think About
Knowing what influences a customer to patronize a business is a necessary part of growing your business. You also need to know the category of customers that'll find your products or services useful and where they look for information.
Some questions that you can think about include:
- Why does the customer patronize you and not others?
- For how long will the relationship last? By this, you should think up new strategies to keep them hooked to your brand. Remember that existing customers not only give good reviews but pay more than new customers.
- What category of customers are your target customers? Know that when you know who your business is for, the chances of you having customers that find your product to be irrelevant will decrease.
- Do they prefer to purchase your products offline or online? For this question, you must consider the times that we're in. With digital transformation and technological innovations leading the way, most customers will gladly jump at businesses that have an online purchase option.
Why the Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) is Pivotal to Your Success
Customer Lifetime Value, also known as (CLTV) is a business-based metric that you use to determine the amount an average customer is likely to spend on your products or services throughout their patronage. By investing in CLTV, you can utilize rational business techniques that will enhance your efforts in sales, advertising, and other units of your business. This will not only retain customers but boost your profit.
Here's a list of how restructuring your business to be customer-friendly affects the CLTV:
1. You Can Retain More Customers
No one wants to have a customer use their service once. Most times, such customers are unsatisfied and are likely to not recommend your service to others in their network. By utilizing CLTV, you can identify the customers likely to do business with you more than once. After all, once they are customers it is far less cost to sell ‘em more that find brand new customers.
2. Increased Chances of Repeat Business
Aside from the one-time customers, you must have a loyal customer network that keeps coming for more business with you. Investing your resources in CLTV enables you to determine the number of times such customers come to do business. You can also use the data to increase the frequency of returning customers.
3. More Revenue
When your business or company has a high CLTV, it is a good sign that often signifies bigger profits. To ensure this, focus on redefining your business such that it exceeds the expectations of your customers, thereby allowing them to invest more and giving you a higher profit margin.
Closing Thoughts
The customer must be at the center of any business, yours especially.
In today's world, you must invest in newer strategies to increase your customer base and maximize profit. How's this possible? Convince the customer that you and your business value their thoughts and will only develop products that speak to their needs. Include customers in new product decision making or invite them to a steering committee meeting.
Reach them through thought-provoking advertising campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Aside from showcasing the latest product, why not interact with them to get their thoughts on how your business can improve?
Even before developing a product, we recommend that you get your customers’ thoughts. They are the ones who'll patronize you, so it makes sense to consult them regarding the said product. Ensure that you target the appropriate audience.
Listen to them to learn how to design products and services that satisfy all their needs. And finally, in every meeting, ask the question: “what does this mean for the customer?”
