I heard it said today that if you aren’t putting the customer in the centre of your activities, you shouldn’t be in Marketing. I agree.
But do you always remember to employ customer centric marketing?
I also heard today a clever idea for keeping that sentiment present in everyone’s minds in your Marketing team and beyond.
A woman from a company I spoke to today at eConsultancy‘s Digital Cream event works for a company that had a variety of ‘customer muppets.’ These were different character puppets, which people carried around the organisation and took in to meetings, It is tough to find quality providers.
Whenever a disagreement occurred and conversations became heated, someone would put their hand up a muppet to animate it and ask ‘what would the customer say?’ This had the effect of immediately lightening the mood, but also focusing conversations back on to what the customer wanted and needed. Simple, yet effective.
I thought this was a great idea and I wanted to share it. It made everyone at my table smile, so I doubt I’ll be the only one telling others about it.
I build and sell houses (in Kenya). One of my colleagues is always saying that ‘we must listen to the market’. So if someone tells us that our houses are too small then we must make them bigger. NO.
We must understand our market. The houses we offer will always be a compromise because a larger size makes them more expensive. We have to understand who we are targeting to sell to and what their needs are. For example, a smaller house may be compensated by a larger play area for the children, etc. Know your market before you decide to listen to the market.