Customer Genius

Peter Fisk

• Publisher: Capstone
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781841127880
• eBook ISBN: 9781907293382
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Business

Hello, I am your customer. Do you see the world like I do? It's simple really. Start with me and everything else follows. Together we can do extraordinary things. Are you ready?

10 building blocks, 30 practical tools, 50 inspirational stories. From Amazon to Banyan Tree, Quintessentially to Zipcars, explore 50 of the world's leading customer businesses. The rise of Air Asia, and the collaboration of Boeing; the segmented focus of Club Med, and the customer vision of Disney; the imagination of Camper, and the desire for the Nintendo Wii; the realism of Dove, and the tribal loyalty of Harley Davidson. The 'genius' of a customer-centric business is that it works from the outside in. It attracts, serves and retains the best customers as its route to profitability and growth. Isn't it about time you started doing business from the outside in?

PART 1

The customer world

In ‘the customer world’ we will explore what it means to be a customer business and why it is a better way to do business. We explore how customers are changing, what they want, and how they want it. We describe how business can embrace these new expectations, work in new and exciting ways, and what impact it will have on your market and commercial performance.

TRACK 1

Hello!

“ I am your customer.

Yes, a real person, a human being.

I have my needs and wants, to get through the day, and to achieve what I must. But I also have my hopes, dreams and ambitions.

For too long you have treated me as a name or number.

You group me into what you call a segment, or sometimes just a mass market.

But I’m not prepared to tolerate that any more.

I am me. Don’t treat me like somebody else.

Sometimes I might be very similar to others,

but I can also be very different and discerning.

In the old world, I realize I didn’t have much choice.

I needed you more than you needed me.

But things have changed.

Now I have the power. Now I’m in control.

You need me more than I need you.

It’s time you started doing business on my terms.

In fact, why are you actually in business?

Just to make as much money as you can, from whatever you can?

Or to make a difference, to make my life better?

Why don’t you learn a bit more about me? Come and listen to what I really want.

I’d love to tell you what I’m really trying to achieve.

Not just whether or not I want your latest gadget, gizmo or gumption.

Why don’t we get together and find a way to really solve my problem?

I’d even be happy to pay more if you can really help me find the right solution.

Start thinking about my world.

Don’t sell me travel tickets, help me explore the world.

Don’t sell me running shoes, help me to run a personal best.

Don’t sell me potted plants, help me to create a magical garden.

Stop telling me what you want to sell.

I have got a life, you know. I will buy things, but in my own time, on my terms.

Worst of all are all those unsolicited mail shots and phone calls.

They interrupt me and frustrate me.

And eventually make me hate you.

When I do want something, I expect it to be easy.

Come to me, or to places convenient for me.

And at times to suit me.

I expect what I’ve seen online to be in your stores or to be available by phone. And to be able to take it back to any of your places if I don’t like it.

But I want you to be open and honest about what the deal is.

None of those hidden clauses or additional costs.

If I can get any book or music delivered to my door in 24 hours, why shouldn’t I expect a new car, a new washing machine and new home to be just as quick?

And if you treat me with the best service when I’m a big cheese at work, then I don’t expect to come back later and be treated like trash as an individual.

Treat me well as an individual and I will tell all my friends how good you are.

I might even switch to you as a corporate customer too.

I know you get rewarded for satisfying me. But frankly I expect much more than that. I demand 100% satisfaction and 100% delight too.

Every time I talk to your people. Every time I experience anything to do with you. It should be right, it should be excellent, it should be perfect.

However, I don’t want the same every time. Life’s too short and a bit boring.

To be honest, I’d sometimes like you to surprise me!

Which brings me to loyalty.

Whether I really want to come back again. And do. And buy more. And tell others. So you give me a plastic card. With something like a 1% discount.

Hmmm. To be honest, I think loyalty is something that has to work both ways. If you trust me, then care for me and do more for me; I might just do likewise.

I don’t really want a relationship with a big anonymous company. I’d much prefer to get to know other people who share my passions.

For travelling. Or running. Or gardening. Real people like me.

The best thing you could do is help me build relationships with other people in my world. Help us to share our ideas and interests, and to do what we love most.

I’m then happy to buy your products. And delighted to be part of your community. And you might even find the things I say and share are valuable to you too.

I know you’re a real person just like me.

But when you go to work you put your blinkers on. You restrict yourself to some artificially defined sector. Whilst I see a bigger, more exciting, more connected world.

You follow conventions and prejudices of your own making. Whilst for me, everything is possible.

It’s simple, really.

You’ve just got to see my world. Do business from the outside in. Not the inside out.

Start with me, and everything else follows.

We can be real people together. Happy supporting each other. With so much more opportunity.

And more fun.

Together we can do extraordinary things.”

TRACK 2

My world … people and their passions

“Do you see the world like I do?

When I go out for a drink, I go to enjoy the company of my friends, to celebrate a birthday, or maybe to meet somebody. As much as you might like it, I don’t go on a mission to find a certain drink or spend time searching out your brand. The drink is an enabler, a consequence, a small part of why I am there.

For you it might seem the main thing. You probably spend millions on researching the deep motivational triggers that drive my brand preferences. The reality is that they matter, but not very much. If you can help me to achieve what I really want to achieve, I’d be much more grateful.

You probably go out for a drink yourself, just like me. But when you go to work, you seem to put those business blinkers on. Your world is suddenly restricted to the world you are in - the drinks industry, where you think of your competitors as other drinks companies rather than other ways in which I spend my money. You work to your own timeframes, whilst I want things now.

That’s not my world. My world has far more opportunities for you. My world is genuinely exciting. And I’d have a real passion for anything you can do to make my world better.”

2.1 WONDERFUL PEOPLE

Imagine just over one hundred years ago - without cars and aeroplanes, phones or satellite TV - when people lived their whole lives in the same local communities, locked on their Pacific Islands, remote in their Andes hilltop villages, isolated tribes in the Amazonian jungle. Life stayed the same, traditions were strong, values were consistent, fashions did not change, futures were predictable, ambitions were limited and people were much more similar.

Of course there were travelling communities, too: the nomads travelling across deserts, the warrior tribes seeking to conquer new kingdoms, the explorers searching for new lands. They brought exotic foods and cultures with them, and introduced new ideas and beliefs. Life became influenced by a much bigger and diverse world connected to different cultures, religion, trends and fashions, opening their minds to bigger opportunities.

Today, people live eclectic, transient lives. Although many have their roots, families and friends in one place, they travel the world for leisure and work, and may live in many different countries during their lives. They are in touch with the world through 24-hour satellite TV.

Technology, in particular, has connected our world. People communicate unhampered by time or location: do business on the beach with your BlackBerry, call your mum whilst climbing Mount Everest, order your favourite food from a different continent, chat for hours to your best friends (who you may never have even met physically) by Skype at no cost.

Life is now a fusion of whatever we want. Our influences are limitless, our boundaries undefined. And as a result, people think and behave more differently. We think more. We dream more.

• We are more different.

• We expect more.

• We want more.

We cannot be averaged by market research. We are not predictable by data analysis. We are not engaged by the same messages and incentives as the next person. We do not perceive the same value in propositions as others. We are not prepared to accept standard products and service.

WONDERFUL PEOPLE: CUSTOMERS AROUND THE WORLD

Business needs to treat people more personally.

• Better to know a few customers well rather than many anonymously.

• Better to have some deep insights rather than lots of numeric averages.

• Better to meet the real emotional desires rather than lots of rational needs.

This creates a fundamental dilemma for business. Unless you are, uniquely, a business for one person, you have to manage the dilemma of sufficient size and scale to make money whilst retaining intimacy. You need to balance customization and standardization, wanting more customers, and serving the existing ones better.

Our challenge is to redefine the business’s purpose, scope, activities and impact through a customer’s eyes. The customer’s point of view is broader and richer, it typically requires a wider range of products and services over time, enabling cross-selling and relationship building, but more importantly requiring more listening, more thoughtful solutions and more human support.

Richard Reed never talks about customers. Richard is the visionary and youthful co-founder of Innocent, the great little company that makes the world’s most natural and tastiest drinks. He talks, with great passion, about ‘those wonderful people who buy and drink our smoothies’.

When was the last time you called your customer a wonderful person?

Indeed, the ...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• PART 1 - The customer world
• PART 2 - The customer business
• PART 3 - The customer champions
• APPENDIX - The Genius Lab
• Credits
• About the author
• Index