Are You Going to Match or Meet Your Customers?

Claire Hillman, a loyal listener, a subscriber to our NL, Why Customers Buy,  and viewer of our podcast on our new YouTube Channel is in a pickle and needs our help. She asks, Should I move to where my customers are or move them to where I want to be? 

Now, our first reaction was to tell Claire that she should absolutely meet customers where they are. After all, isn’t that the customer-centric thing to do? 

However, it occurred to us that at one time, we waited in line at the airport to check in, wrote out our bills on paper checks to mail back through snail mail, and bought DVDs and CDs that we had to store on specially made racks in our homes. 

We did these things because we hadn’t moved to digital check-in, automatic bill payment, and streaming. If organizations hadn’t moved us to these efficient and easy ways to simplify these tasks, we might still be making small talk with the airline employee or licking envelopes.

Since we see that many things that we do today are not the way we used to do things—and realize how much better the experiences are with the new way—it might not be the best things to meet customers where they are. Instead, it might be better to move them where you want them to be. 

In this episode, we explore the finer points of moving customers to where they want to be and how to manage this process for your organization. You might be surprised to know that giving customers exactly what they want isn’t always the best way to handle your customer strategy. 

Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience

Another area where some customers might have not realized was a benefit to them is Self-Service, particularly at the supermarket. However, other customers are never going to want to serve themselves there. What is happening here is the idea of customer segmentation. Some customers love taking matters into their own hands; others feel like it’s losing something from the experience to have to handle things themselves. How you move these groups to where you want them to be requires a careful look at the value you bring to the experience and framing the change in a way that appeals to each segment. 

Here are a few other key moments in the discussion:

• 02:51  We learn about Claire’s pickle and how our first reaction was replaced with the idea that it depends on where your customers are and where you are trying to move them.  
• 4:50  Colin shares a story about how self-service at a supermarket showed him how organizations train customers to try new services and having front-line employees there is a great way to do it. 
• 07:58  We discuss how customer segmentation and understanding what customers value is an essential part of managing the process for moving customers, or you can move some of them right out the door.
• 13:57  Colin describes how he gets his wife Lorraine to update her iOS on the iPhone, a task she detests, by showing her a couple of new features she is sure to value, which is a great example of what to do with customers.
• 16:48  Colin explains how the Focus feature that came out on Apple’s last iOS for the iPhone demonstrated how different people care about different things (customer segments), so getting them to change using the same strategy can be difficult.
• 23:22  Ryan explains how meeting customer might also mean taking into consideration their cognitive state, and what resources they have for deciding to move forward when you position the change.
• 26:15  We both share our practical advice for what you can do with this information to move customers where you need them to be. 

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Customer Experience Information & Resources

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 290,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for the last four years in a row. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. 

Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 35,000 subscribers. 

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