 Great photo by Grok. Steve Jobs famously said “It’s not the customer’s job to know what they want.”
What did he mean by that? Is that a hard-and-fast rule that you should never break? If not, when should you break it? And most importantly, how can you generate more revenue from the answers to these questions? Let’s dive in! Creative inference That (in)famous Steve Jobs quote was about his notion of eschewing focus groups when it came to product development. His thinking was, that if you’d asked a customer, say in 1983, what they “wanted,” in terms of electronic brainpower, they would have simply said “a better calculator.” They couldn’t envision a Macintosh, because they didn’t know what was technically possible, nor how to transform that technology into a wholly new product category which would surprise and delight them at every turn. Gee. Steve Jobs was onto something. Who’da thunk? Is this a hard-and-fast rule? Hate to be squishy, but it depends. If you really want to nail product or service development, you can certainly borrow a page from Steve Jobs. The whole idea of creatively inferring what customers want, based on their day-in-the-life situation, is a specialized practice that doesn’t come naturally to many business owners; as such, there are consultancies (and we’ve worked with them) which specialize in this. Let’s talk about marketing. And let’s assume, for now, that you’ve got a product or service to sell which already checks the surprise-and-delight boxes for your customers. If those customers are repeat customers, you have an opportunity here. Yep: you can ask them things. Oh, the sacrilege! Survey the situation We recently helped a client craft a customer-satisfaction survey campaign. We say “campaign,” because it included a few components. Pay attention, and you’ll get ideas for your own business: Our client had always conducted customer-satisfaction surveys at the conclusion of any engagement with any of their clients. It was, and is, a sound business practice: It helps them to continually improve. But, assuming that they’re doing most things very well, it also makes for a very nice marketing opportunity. Think about that: Let’s say you’re a client of this company. They just served you very nicely. You’re about to move on, and lose that precious top-of-mind awareness of what they do… when you get a friendly email from them, asking you to please complete their customer-satisfaction survey. Aha. You’re instantly reminded of them! When you complete the survey, you’re instantly reminded of just what they did, and how good they were at it. What a wonderful reinforcement! …But what if you don’t complete the survey? Then what? Well, you still got the email, inviting you to participate. And there was another dollop of incentive therein; as we’d said, this was a “campaign.” Sweetening the deal The customer-satisfaction survey email was a classic opportunity for our client—and for you, reading this—to easily capture low-hanging re-sell and/or up-sell opportunities. That’s because the email included a referral offer. It went something like this: “Complete the survey, and we’ll send you a $25 Amazon Gift Card. Bonus: After you’ve completed the survey, you can earn a $500 Amazon Gift Card by referring a new client to us. And to make you feel better about referring us, you can tell your friends that we’ll give them a $1,000 discount off of our services because you sent them our way! Everyone wins!” You got that right. Everyone wins. So. The survey is somewhat anti-Jobsian, in that it asks customers how they feel about something that they already bought. But in that regard, Apple is no different: We’ve actually received surveys from them, asking us about products we’ve purchased from them… which have actually included radio-box options for products and features that Apple has not released yet (32-inch iMac, anyone?) So much for their ultra-secretive/customer-detached company culture. You can also use this technique for other, very basic stuff: What topics would your clients like to see addressed in your upcoming blogs, webinars, or YouTube videos? Ask them. And if you toss in, say, a referral program along with the ask, we surely won’t hold it against you. Have a marketing challenge you could use help with? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help!
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