The age of disconnect is long over. Internet changed the way the world functioned and how companies went about their businesses. Now, with social media changing the world further, we have ushered into the age of connect. A company can no longer remain disconnected from its customers but more importantly a company must connect with its customers.
The Perspective of the Company
How To Connect With Your Customers is a million dollar question. Companies across the world spend millions to connect with their audience. Earlier, tradeshows and surveys were the most popular ways to connect with customers. Today, it is social media, emails, texts and mobile apps. Connecting with customers is not a daunting challenge at all. It is the nature of the connect that matters and is also difficult to establish.
The first step to connect with your customers is to understand your customer. Most businesses take a completely impersonal approach to understand their audience. They take into consideration financial profiles, credit history, patterns of shopping or spending and then they categorize various people according to their data. Had data been able to create connect then statisticians would have become the biggest marketers in the world. The best salespersons or advertisers are still the creative people who can think beyond data or numbers. The reason why that is the reality is because emotions are more important than anything. The moment data becomes more consequential than emotions, the already worsened rat race would become an annihilating world war where only the fittest would survive.
Predatory Practices
Predatory marketing strategies are considered unethical but they also don’t work that well. Had data been the only important criterion, then predatory pricing should have worked well and the company indulging in it would have become the next Apple or Samsung. Instead, it is those companies that ask people to spend more that are enjoying skyrocketing stock prices. The reason why the likes of Apple, Nike and Toyota are ruling their games is because they have an emotional connect with their audience. One who has owned an Apple will buy another Apple gadget. The same applies to a Nike lover or an owner of a Toyota.
It is acknowledged by every business owner that acquiring a new client is always more expensive than retaining an existing client. And yet, most companies don’t focus on retention as much as they focus on expanding their outreach. One can keep on expanding its outreach but unless a company manages to hold their original ground, they would continue to struggle.
The info-graphic shares some very wise approaches that you must deploy if you wish to connect with your customers. Treating your customers well, addressing their problems with breathtaking efficiency, knowing your customers and considering them important for your company and certainly not a stat mark the beginning of understanding your clients. When a company begins to understand its customers and the customers realize that they are being taken care of by the company, the bond is much more important and consequential than the transactional relationships that most businesses vie for.
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