The Hidden Values of Including Your Customer
Consumer-influenced and custom-made products require us to be aware of what our customers want in order to make what our customers need.
Most of our manufacturing industries have roots in handcrafted workmanship and made-to-order products. Direct touch-points with customers through local walk-inks, a local salesperson, one-on-one contact allow you to dive directly into the customer needs discovery. Yet nowadays, our customers live in a retail and online environment. How do you manage to stay customer-centric on the Internet?
Most of us have a webpage since our customers use the internet to research and compare, especially before they buy expensive products. This online presence to connect with customers more often is a presentation of yourself to be perceived an expert and trustworthy, than an invitation to discover customers’ needs. Potential customers get an idea of the different offerings but you know yourself, that often, they don’t know what they are looking for precisely, they have a hard time articulating what they want, let alone the exact product and design. This is why it is crucial that you use your webpage to better understand what those wants and needs are, what your potential customers are looking for and offer them assistance and consulting along that process.
Just knowing already helps you in the interaction process with the potential customer. You can sell them better, based on their needs, assist and consult them articulating their wants. The better you understand your customer, the better the result, the happier the customer. You should even take it a step further than the assisting and consulting and knowing: Include your customers in the design of your products (as discussed here in: End-to-End Digital Fabrication). An engineer or scientist may find the idea of including customer input in product design rather unusual, but research has shown that this generates better products that offer a closer fit to what consumers really need. But beyond these “objective” arguments there are some non-obvious truths that build a competitive advantage for any industry and craft.
Participation
Businesses that use the Internet to integrate their customers more actively show stronger demand for the products, even though when they are of similar quality in objective terms. This is seemingly irrational but can be explained because consumers develop a stronger feeling of psychological ownership of the products selected. This holds truth only when it does reflect the consumers’ preferences a 100% and they have been assured that they have the relevant competence to make a sound decisions.
Identification
Even when customers are not using any of your consulting and assistance they prefer to buy from businesses that adopted a customer-driven philosophy. This potentially even bigger customer target of so called observing-customers identifies with the other customers and translates your approach how you treat others into a broader mindset of customer-centricity, giving them an assured feeling that you will be there for them whatever happens.
Empowerment
Customers feel empowerment when being involved in the design and/or manufacturing process. Now you have made them a part of the story and this formed connection leads to a higher preference for all of your products. Two things are important for this: Do not make them feel like non-experts. You want them to feel that they belong to the social group of potential buyers. Second, do not use selectively participation but rather open participation to all users and products. You want to give your consumer customers the same tools as your professional customers, as your salespeople, as your internal customers like marketing, customer service,…
We believe you should deliver the same grand customer service on the internet just like you would expect in your local store. Even before a customer visits you, they should have the feeling and certainty that they will experience the best customer consulting, that their needs matter, they become educated to form a decision and their wants will be satisfied.
Position your business customer-centric and user-driven. Coshape Customizer Technology helps you differentiate your solution and sell on utility: Now it just becomes a question if you want to sell them what they want. With Coshape you can let customers tell you what they need and then decide if you want to produce it.
