Case Study
Every entrepreneur wonders what his client wants because giving a good answer depends on whether we sell.
But in that response, we are usually obfuscated because what usually happens is one of these things:
- We give more importance to the price than it has. We immediately enter into price wars and become obfuscated that this is what the client wants, so we lower it, we continue without selling. They do not explain how it is possible, while we reduce the results even more.
- We focus on promoting things that we like but not the customer. Over and over again, when I have advised entrepreneurs and asked what they offered differently, they always answered things that were not among the reasons for a client’s purchase. We must put our opinion aside and focus on what the buyer wants, even if we do not like it.
- We focus on the Product itself, but that vision is very limited, and we do not expand it to cover the most important thing, which is what we are going to see in the results of this case study.
Therefore, to answer once and for all the questions of what a client wants, we will see the conclusions of a very interesting study.
We will see that they corroborate something that I always comment to entrepreneurial friends when they market a product. If we understand this well, we have the key and the advantage that 90% of entrepreneurs will never capture.
Also read: What is Investigation Project? And its Uses?
Table of Contents
What a Customer Wants
The reality is that customers are not looking for the Product itself. Rather, they are looking for a complete experience and what they value about us is that complete experience and not the Product they buy.
Here is a real example. I was recently talking to an entrepreneur who has a place nearby. He spoke about how he doesn’t sell beers, although he prides himself on having a multitude of imported varieties and that it is one of the places in Valencia where there is more choice.
But the customer is not looking for the drink, even if that is the Product for which he pays hard cash.
Give him the best beer in the world, the tastiest and most whole, and give it to him in a dirty place, in a bad way, without hardly speaking and making him sit in an uncomfortable chair, with horrible music and too loud to talk at eight in the afternoon. I bet everything I have that never comes back, even if it’s the best beer I’ve ever had.
Because we do not sell (nor is the client looking for) the Product itself, but the whole experience as a whole.
That is what you are going to value.
I also personally remember a certain service company, which I recognize has a very competitive price and a more than acceptable quality. Still, it has a VERY serious problem of customer treatment and management.
When the issue of not being sure about whether to renew the service at once has been brought to light, the defence of the moving company has always been: «Is it that something has failed? Has there been a problem with the service itself? ‘
And the reality is that maybe not, but feel ignored when something arises, or going to be treated and having one of the most frustrating moments of the week in which you waste time, is an example of the blindness we often have as entrepreneurs.
The client is not looking for or evaluating the Product itself, but the complete experience from the moment he meets us until the end of the interaction.
Test Results, what a Customer wants, Ordered by Importance
In this University of Michigan Marketing test, when they analyzed in detail what a customer wanted, looked for, and valued in their purchases, these were their results in order of Importance:
1. The Value and benefit Received with the Product.
Which corroborates everything ever said in Assets for SMEs. The main thing for them to buy is value, not price or anything like that. If they perceive or verify that they receive more discount than they pay and cannot receive as much elsewhere, they will buy.
With enough value, we can make the price irrelevant, and people will pay what it takes. Look at the example of iPhones.
Even if a client seeks and values ​​the complete experience, we cannot forget that he mainly wants to solve his problem. Many smiles and the best of environments will not do us any good if when he leaves the door, his problem continues unresolved.
But that’s not the only thing. The next thing valued was something unexpected.
2. How Convenient the Experience has Been
After value comes convenience, something unexpected, but you cannot underestimate how lazy we are as customers, and what we favour is that they do not make us think or strain.
Convenience implies how easy everything has been, the treatment, the speed, the comfort it has had, the availability, and not having to walk twenty kilometres or wait 30 days to receive the Product
3 The price
After all those factors from before, the price finally appears.
It has never been my intention to minimize it, but we must put it in its place because we will pay whatever it is if the experience is good enough.
That’s why the smart entrepreneur focuses on providing the best value and experience a customer has ever had, rather than lowering the price and selling off as the only tactic.
The price is important, but even if it is very low, nobody wants trash, no matter how cheap it is.
4. The Shopping Environment.
Whether real or virtual, the customer also assesses whether the environment he has made the purchase is pleasant entertains him, and encourages him to buy and return.
These four factors, ordered by Importance, represent what a client really wants, verified and objectively analyzed, so that, now that we are sure of what real experience says (and not “popular wisdom”), we already know in what order to use our forces if we want to improve the offer.
The practical task is to put at least three things that improve those key elements for customer buys.
How to Apply this in Practice
If what we are looking for is more sales, the first thing is to strive to have the best offer on the market.
We have to think of 3 things to differentiate ourselves, provide more value, and be the most professional and expert in what we do.
Three, only three for next week, to have them applied in our offer because, in the end.
What a client wants is to calm their pain?
If we are like Dr House in our sector, we can become rude, not shave in a month and not smile once all day, that while we save lives that others cannot, they will continue to line up at our door.
It is the most important thing. It amazes me that 90% of entrepreneurs do not quite “get it” for real and that we are all victims of the blindness that makes us think that we are the best when we are just one more.
Now that, yes, Dr House would have twice the number of patients if he also gave better treatment in addition to being the best.
The customer is looking for the experience and not just the Product, so once we have the best offer.
Our focus should be on Answering the Question:
- What can I do so that the customer has the best shopping experience from the moment they meet me for the first time until they walk out the door?.
- Nobody cares about the customer once they have bought, so we have to write to them asking how everything is going and if they have any questions, while the others do not care.
- Everyone tries to look professional and have the air of a big company, while we understand that people want to connect with other people, which is why we include a human touch.
- Do you remember how we saw this same Premium section that increased sales in Resources for SMEs by 30%?
Very few care about their clients and that everything goes well for them (it sounds harsh, but let’s look around, and we will see that it is true, that many, after payment, do not worry about anything).
That is why we will be different, and don’t stop wondering how we can improve each step of the entire experience.
Regarding the price.
As we have seen, pricing policies work when sporadic and only when we have built an offering and an experience that customers see as valuable.
If we do not have that, lowering the price never works because even if we leave it on the ground, it will still be too high if we offer worthless junk.
Let’s use the pricing policy as we have seen in this same Premium section, but let’s first try to build the value.
The environment matters.
Let us also remember other results of real tests that we have seen here. In them, we noticed that only with a certain smell or certain music, a client’s decision could be influenced.
That is why every smart entrepreneur knows that the environment in which the experience occurs matters.
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