5 Ways to Know What Your Customers Want Before They Do

You have to train yourself to see the world through their eyes. Here's how.

The number one worry we hear from our clients today is this: “I need to understand my customer better, but it's getting harder, not easier.” Why is that true for so many entrepreneurs? Let us count the ways:

• Customers are less loyal and far less trusting than they used to be. This is especially true in industries whose reputations suffered during the financial crisis—including banking, pharmaceuticals, energy, airlines and media. But even if you're in an unrelated industry, you’re likely to feel some of the same effect.
• Consumers have more power than ever before, thanks to social media, easy on-line comparison-shopping, and a proliferation of choices.
• Customer diversity continues to increase, putting a premium on micro-segmentation and deep customer insight.
• By increasing the noise-to-data ratio, the data deluge occasioned by the Internet can actually make it harder to understand your customers.
• Economic uncertainty and data overload confuse customers as well, making them less interested in products than in flexible, adaptive solutions.

To get close to this more demanding client, you really need to get inside his or her head. Here are five ways to do that:

• Stand in your customer’s shoes. Look beyond your core business and understand your customer’s full range of choices, as well as his or her ecosystem of suppliers, partners etc.--of which you may be part.  This exercise will also deepen your understanding of competitors and help you better anticipate their moves.
• Staple yourself to a customer’s order.  Track key customers’ experiences as they traverse your company’s pathways and note where the experience breaks down.  Some hospitals ask interns to experience the check-in process as fake patients. One client asked managers to listen in on its call center. If you can’t exactly put yourself through a customer experience, try role-playing exercises at all points of the customer’s experience with your company.
• Field diverse customer teams.  One bank added members of the back-office support group to its customer team, supplementing the usual customer-facing roles. IBM sends senior teams from different disciplines into the field to meet customers and develop a deep understanding of how to serve them better.
• Learn together with customers. GE invited its top customers in China, along with local executives and account managers, to a seminar on leadership and innovation. Doing so not only helped GE executives better understand the mindset of Chinese counterparts; it also helped them to influence that mindset.
• Lean forward and anticipate.  Focus on what customers will want tomorrow, as Steve Jobs and Richard Branson did so exquisitely.  Try to envision different futures through tools like scenario planning and then explore how underlying market shifts may affect your customers.

Remember that sometimes you need to get out of your own way to really understand your customers. Psychologists know, for example, that you’re likely to listen for problems that fit your own offerings, and to discount others. That can cause you to miss important opportunities, or to get blindsided later.
 So, try to listen with a third ear, as an anthropologist would, to what your customers are saying to you.  If you can truly hear them, they’ll tell you all you need to know.
 Co-authored with Steve Krupp, CEO of Decision Strategies International, with helpful advice from Wharton Professor George S. Day who just published a related book called Innovation Prowess. Click here to test your customer centricity.
 

Paul J. H. Schoemaker is founder and chairman at Decision Strategies International. A speaker, professor, and entrepreneur, Schoemaker is research director at the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at Wharton, where he teaches strategic decision making. His latest book is Brilliant Mistakes: Finding Success on the Far Side of Failure.

Read 8 Things You Should Not Do Every Day

8 Things You Should Not Do Every Day

It's for your own good. Cut these things out of your day and you'll see gains in productivity--not to mention happiness.

If you get decent value from making to-do lists, you'll get huge returns--in productivity, in improved relationships, and in your personal well-being--from adding these items to your not to-do list:
Every day, make the commitment not to:
1. Check my phone while I'm talking to someone.
You've done it. You've played the, "Is that your phone? Oh, it must be mine," game. You've tried the you-think-sly-but-actually-really-obvious downwards glance. You've done the, "Wait, let me answer this text..." thing.
Maybe you didn't even say, "Wait." You just stopped talking, stopped paying attention, and did it.
Want to stand out? Want to be that person everyone loves because they make you feel, when they're talking to you, like you're the most important person in the world?
Stop checking your phone. It doesn't notice when you aren't paying attention.
Other people? They notice.
And they care.
2. Multitask during a meeting.
The easiest way to be the smartest person in the room is to be the person who pays the most attention to the room.
You'll be amazed by what you can learn, both about the topic of the meeting and about the people in the meeting if you stop multitasking and start paying close attention. You'll flush out and understand hidden agendas, you'll spot opportunities to build bridges, and you'll find ways to make yourself indispensable to the people who matter.
It's easy, because you'll be the only one trying.
And you'll be the only one succeeding on multiple levels.
3. Think about people who don't make any difference in my life.
Trust me: The inhabitants of planet Kardashian are okay without you.
But your family, your friends, your employees--all the people that really matter to you--are not. Give them your time and attention.
They're the ones who deserve it.
4. Use multiple notifications.
You don't need to know the instant you get an email. Or a text. Or a tweet. Or anything else that pops up on your phone or computer.
If something is important enough for you to do, it's important enough for you to do without interruptions. Focus totally on what you're doing. Then, on a schedule you set--instead of a schedule you let everyone else set--play prairie dog and pop your head up to see what's happening.
And then get right back to work. Focusing on what you are doing is a lot more important than focusing on other people might be doing.
They can wait. You, and what is truly important to you, cannot.
5. Let the past dictate the future.
Mistakes are valuable. Learn from them.
Then let them go.
Easier said than done? It all depends on your perspective. When something goes wrong, turn it into an opportunity to learn something you didn't know--especially about yourself.
When something goes wrong for someone else, turn it into an opportunity to be gracious, forgiving, and understanding.
The past is just training. The past should definitely inform but in no way define you--unless you let it.
6. Wait until I'm sure I will succeed.
You can never feel sure you will succeed at something new, but you can always feel sure you are committed to giving something your best.
And you can always feel sure you will try again if you fail.
Stop waiting. You have a lot less to lose than you think, and everything to gain.
7. Talk behind someone's back.
If only because being the focus of gossip sucks. (And so do the people who gossip.)
If you've talked to more than one person about something Joe is doing, wouldn't everyone be better off if you stepped up and actually talked to Joe about it? And if it's "not your place" to talk to Joe, it's probably not your place to talk about Joe.
Spend your time on productive conversations. You'll get a lot more done--and you'll gain a lot more respect.
8. Say "yes" when I really mean "no."
Refusing a request from colleagues, customers, or even friends is really hard. But rarely does saying no go as badly as you expect. Most people will understand, and if they don't, should you care too much about what they think?
When you say no, at least you'll only feel bad for a few moments. When you say yes to something you really don't want to do you might feel bad for a long time--or at least as long as it takes you to do what you didn't want to do in the first place.

Jeff Haden learned much of what he knows about business and technology as he worked his way up in the manufacturing industry. Everything else he picks up fromghostwriting books for some of the smartest leaders he knows in business. @jeff_haden