Jeffery Philips writes I think many of us in business never come in contact with an actual buying customer, which is really a shame. Too often we speak of our customers, or in my line of work our "users", and we are somewhat removed from any contact with those individuals or teams. That leads all of us to apply our thinking and our values to those individuals, rather than being able to understand who they are, and what they want.
I was in a meeting not long ago where everyone on the team understood that their primary target audience was women over 35. They decided to name the representational customer Jane, and gave her attributes. The entire discussion was - "Would Jane like this" and "Would Jane use this". I guess that's all well and good - takes you down a step or two in the right direction - but why not bring a couple of "Janes" into the process? Why not take your product or service to "Jane" and ask her to use it?
Some tips that you might want to use which I have found useful:
- When was the last time you behaved like a customer of your company?
- Try calling the call centre once in a while(if you have one) or the office. Experience the difficulty or convenience of interacting with your company. It teaches a lot on what to improve or how your customers would feel.
- Buy products from your company and keep a track of how they treat you!
- Talk to your channel or distributors. They share a lot of about customers, their likes and dislikes. Sit in their shop or office and observe.
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