From the moment you are born until the day you die, your life is jammed packed with stories. The first time you rode a bike, your childhood adventures with friends in the park, your first date, the death of a loved one – these are all chapters in the story of your life. Your customers have similar experiences that make up the stories of their lives.
In a world of sales objectives and quotas that need to be met, it’s very easy to lose sight of the humanity of customers. By understanding your customers’ stories, you will be able to relate to them on a deeper level. If you listen closely to them and understand their challenges, you can help solve them together as a team.
Customers Are People Too
Forget for a moment that you are selling or marketing for a minute. It’s easy to see customers as check marks on a spreadsheet or targets on a dartboard. Keep in mind that your customers have families, relationships, issues and challenges just like everyone else. They have to get up in the morning and go to work with all of the pressures and stress that go with it. They may have a spouse and children or perhaps they are single. Some sales people treat customers as nothing more than a sales objective for a firm, failing to see and relate to the humanity of each person with which the firm interacts. This is a profound mistake and one that companies cannot afford to make.
Relationships
Understanding human behavior is a key to success in business. I spoke with an entrepreneur once who told me that when you make customers your friends, the dynamic between seller and customer changes significantly in the business transaction. Successful business is all about relationships. Customers like to do business with people they trust. When you want to buy something online, do you go to e-commerce websites that you have never heard of before? If you do, don’t you first check them out through customer reviews, people you know who have used them, or the BBB? It is unwise to do business with people that you don’t trust.
Be Real
I have found throughout my career that honesty is still the best policy. My success has been directly connected to being honest and open with my customers. If my colleagues and I made a mistake by unintentionally shipping the wrong product or a defective product, we quickly admitted to that mistake and rectified the situation, which in turn strengthened our relationships with customers who saw us as honest and reliable. Being open and honest in business builds trust and long-lasting relationships.
Early in my career, I went on a sales call with a seasoned advertising professional. When he sat down with his customers to solve a problem, he was very careful what language he used when talking with them. He didn’t say “you” or “your” once. It was always “we” and “our”. He acted like one of them and was accepted as one of them, not an outside agency.
Technology
There are several Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms that can help sales and marketing people “manage” their customer’s stories. Capturing birthdays, anniversaries, special events, customer concerns and solutions in this platform are very helpful especially during transition times when a sales or marketing person moves on and another may need to take his or her place. Documentation is very important. I have a beautiful wife and 5 wonderful children. With all of the activities in everyday life, I struggle remembering birthdays and key dates. Multiply that by 50 key customers and that’s a ton of information to retain. Leveraging technology to organize this information is very helpful. Remember, technology will not replace personal contact, but it can help keep you organized so you can be more effective. IBM has released a series of commercials that show celebrities interacting with IBM’s Watson. Watson is a technology platform that uses natural language and machine learning to reveal information and insight. Their commercial regarding storytelling with Stephen King is a unique and entertaining way to tie storytelling with technology. Leveraging technology to help you manage your customer’s stories should be strongly considered for your business.
Do You Know Your Customer’s Story?
How much do you really know about your customers? Do you know why they like doing business with you? Do you know their needs and expectations? What are their challenges in business? Can your company help them achieve their goals? Do you have a personal relationship with them or are you just another supplier to them?
Knowing each of your customer’s stories is important, however being part of your customer’s story is critical to your success.
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