Tweet

Entrepreneurial Lessons: What Does your Customer Want?

Guest post by: Sylvia Lafair

Article Overview: You know the big question, "What does the customer want?" The answer that is finding its way into the marketplace is that customers want emotional satisfaction. It seems that the "stuff" no matter how bold the packaging, is simply not enough. Customers want to be heard, respected, and included. And they want to be connected to their product through the heart. Kevin Roberts knows this. He is the CEO Worldwide of Saatchi and Saatchi, a renowned advertising agency. He knows that the best objective scientifically led research into customer satisfaction will miss the mark unless the emotional aspects of customer needs go unmet. I have been honored to have Kevin endorse my book "Don't Bring it to Work", where I tackle the emotional realm of work relationships. You can catch him on a HSM webinar on Friday, September 18.

Entrepreneurial Lessons: What Does your Customer Want?

You know the big question, "What does the customer want?" The answer that is finding its way into the marketplace is that customers want emotional satisfaction. It seems that the "stuff" no matter how bold the packaging, is simply not enough. Customers want to be heard, respected, and included. And they want to be connected to their product through the heart. Kevin Roberts knows this. He is the CEO Worldwide of Saatchi and Saatchi, a renowned advertising agency. He knows that the best objective scientifically led research into customer satisfaction will miss the mark unless the emotional aspects of customer needs go unmet. I have been honored to have Kevin endorse my book "Don't Bring it to Work", where I tackle the emotional realm of work relationships. You can catch him on a HSM webinar on Friday, September 18.

As he indicates, we are all rebooting our companies. And in this time we must all:

• Give up control: relinquish power to engage the customer.

• Find a purpose higher than the product: be involved in social causes and sustainability

• Find an emotional connection with customers

So, just as the Women's Movement called first and foremost for partnership, so does the rethinking of customer relations and customer loyalty. I'd like you to think about how you would handle the following scenario, told to me by a new consulting client:

"We had hit hard times and I was having trouble paying the bills on time. There was one company who did some P.R. for us. I had to hold off paying for the time being and wanted to talk with the owner of the company. She emailed me that she had no time and would have her bookkeeper talk with me.

In response, I emailed that I really wanted to talk with her. She was the one I had the relationship with; I did not even know the bookkeeper. I had referred several people to her agency and I guess I was hoping for a bit of a break. Actually, years earlier when she was in a tough spot I had given her a big discount on our product.

To get to the bottom line, she would not talk, told me via email, she would only consider a conversation after the bill was paid. It made me dig my heels in. It made me wonder if all her talk about making a difference in the world was really just so much marketing babble. It has become conflict resolution 101. I questioned her leadership skills and saw her as a control freak.

I am looking at my own issues around control and that is why I hired you to do some executive coaching around the situation. I refuse to pay the bill until we talk and she refuses to talk. I almost hope she gets a lawyer, at least then perhaps we will have the discussion I request." Regardless of the outcome I will never work with nor refer anyone to her agency in the future.

What she doesn't get is it's not about the money, it's about power and control and feeling discounted and diminished. Now, my ego can handle the situation. I will pay her, I do owe the money and we are now in a stronger financial position. I can't decide if I should just pay her now and write this off as a bad relationship or wait till we can talk."

Related Articles
  The Power of the Embedded Entrepreneur
  SMEs - a challenge for African countries
  Learn from Golf... Create More Revenue
  Staying in the Entrepreneurial Mindset Online
  Building Entrepreneurial Communities is a 20 year journey
  Preserving the Entrepreneurial Mindset
  SME's - does protectionism help
  Important "Lessons Learned” For Leaders, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  Changing to an Entrepreneurial Mindset
  It Takes Teamwork to Make a Company Dream Work
  Lessons to Learn From the First Dot Com Boom
  14.0 What Needs to be Done - Producing Useable Knowledge: Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in Africa
  3 most important films for leaders and entrepreneurs.
  3 Tips for Customer Service Excellence
  15.0 What Needs to be Done - Producing Better Research: Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in Africa
  Ten More Important “Lessons Learned” For Leaders, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  Lessons Learned From Strategic Marketing From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  SME's - still a strong component in the South African economy
  6.0 The African Entrepreneur Behavioral Patterns: Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in Africa
  Practice Makes Permanent

Article Tags: customer needs, emotional aspects, emotional satisfaction, marketplace, objective, work relationships



Related Forum Posts
Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT - Hi David, To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience". Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
Re: I.M Fellow Here! - Thanks! Evan, I hv heard much about your ingenuity in Entrepreneurial sphere. Great work you're doing!
300 rules! - 300 was my favorite movie of 2007 and Kevin you did a great job in highlighting the Business Lessons from the Movie.
Re: Cash Comes from Creativity - Hi Yinka, Good post and a very Entrepreneurial approach if you like. It is true that with the every day gadgets, services and products that we use, it is easy to look at them just for what they are and not what they could be. We should always be on the look out for ideas that we can explore or existing products that we can maybe improve or re-design and that is also true with Internet Marketing. regards, Mal.
Re: Paypal process $315 million in payments per day. - I agree with you David, their Customer relations suck. This mean other payment systems like 2CO and WORLDPAY should work on their customers relations to take more slice of the market.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Here's a great ROI

The Importance of Master Data Management (MDM)

Promoting your company and self with verve

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.