Is What You Say What Your Customers Get?
In this morning's Twitter roundup Hoovers asked three questions:
"If you could summarize your brand in two words, what would you say?
What would your customers say?
Are they different?"
This reminded me of how many times we SAY what our "brand promise" is but our customers may actually experience something completely different.
A few years ago, I had a wonderful conversation with my coach Cynthia Ronan, who specializes in clarity. I remember TELLING her what I felt that I offered my clients and she sat back and listened and listened some more. Finally she said "Don't you think you're being a little arrogant assuming that you can define what your customers value about you?" This made me stop in my tracks. Then she said "Not only is it too much work, you're probably wrong."
I realized that instead of observing and listening to my clients and where they perceived value – I was putting my own perceptions on what I felt they should value on them.
This created several problems :
- I was trying to read my clients' minds and that is not only difficult, but futile.
- I wasn't really listening to what they may have needed and or wanted and hence, was missing opportunities for differentiating my own services.
If you want to answer Hoovers questions try this:
- Talk to your customers or clients about what value and benefit they get from your interaction. What is it about this experience that makes you (your company) the obvious and only choice for them.
- Listen to what they say and how they say it. Don't judge or think about arguing. Just listen.
- Do this with several clients from different segments.
- Stop and think about what you love and are good at. What is your strength – that which sets you apart? What is the relationship between your strength and the value or benefit your customers get from you.
- Come up with your "two words"
- Feed those back to your customers. Do they agree? Find words that resonate with both you and your ideal customer.
(Picture from Flickr.com courtesy of Aphrodite)
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Ivana, great post. It’s always a humbling experience to know truth. But I think we have to have our own ’some words’ to explain what we do (more from a product/service perspective) and customers will, based on the benefit they get from you, define your business in their own terms. e.g. a handicapped customer of bus transport might say that the transport company is the ‘lifeline of my career’ or another customer might say ‘I go to work using the company’s services’ but the transport company will have it’s own version of what it does. I think these two are going to be different. I think we have to be satisfied by knowing about it and using it in our strategy but can’t ‘unify’ them.
Chaitanya
http://www.p2w2.com
Ivana, You are a very wise woman. How many hours do we spend in discussions, speculating what customers think or want… when we should just have the moxie to go ahead and ask them! It’d be a whole lot easier to market yourself when you truly know what makes you unique in the eyes of your customers. For instance, I wonder if Loreal Cosmetics knows that the only reason I buy their lipstick is for the little chrome “mirror” on the end of the lid. Second thought, I’m sure they know this, or they wouldn’t spend money to put it there… but it begs the question. What is my “little chrome mirror” in the way I package my services? Now the scary part is getting around to doing the asking. And not just asking the clients who are “raving fans” of yours, but also the clients who aren’t (not that I have any of those… or do I?). I guess I’ll have to ask.