How many times have you found yourself thinking of the customer as your enemy? Or as an obstacle that needs to be overcome? We all have difficult days at work where we become frustrated by the behaviour of the people we’re selling our goods or services to, writes Paul Farley. But it’s so important to remember that our clients, prospects, audience, are exactly that – people …
That said, the notion of the ‘battle’ or ‘struggle’ is so ingrained in the language used to describe doing business that it’s not surprising we often end up picturing an ‘us and them’ scenario.
Yes, people can be unpredictable and unfavourable – and sometimes downright unpleasant. We’ve all had days where we’re tearing our hair out because of a failure to communicate, or an inability to move forward. But it’s in times like these that we need to remind ourselves that they are only human, just like us. We have similar frustrations, ambitions and issues in our lives, and there’s a good chance that we’re failing to appreciate that during our interactions with each other.
When I deal with clients, when my diary permits I like to spend some time getting to know those clients as people (to a reasonable extent). When we’re able to get down to a more personal level, it’s much easier to understand what they need, what their challenges (both professional and personal) are, and how I can tailor my offer to suit. I then know better when to push, when to console, or when to suggest new solutions.
Personalisation in retail has been getting a lot of exposure recently. In a world of multichannel demand and big data, it makes sense to learn as much about our customers as possible by harvesting and analysing their data, and using it to create a profile of them as an individual – which, in turn, a retailer can respond to with the most appropriate services and product suggestions.
As the term implies, personalisation is about establishing and meeting demand by getting personal, and there’s merit to the approach whether you’re running an operation at scale from a huge database of customers, or meeting the needs of a small catchment area, online or off. You want to get to know your customer, so you can serve them better, and make a bigger profit.
Furniture is very much a people-first sector – the reason so many businesses flourish is because they have such strong personal relationships with one another, many of which date back a long way. And we should never lose sight of that.
On a strategic level as much as going about our day-to-day business, we should constantly remind ourselves that while our real aim may be to sell more products, we will only do so by recognising what motivates our customers to buy.
Rather than a list of features and components, perhaps our customers really need to hear and understand how a product is going to make their lives better or easier. If a shopper looking for a sofa might be better swayed by a suggestion of curling up in comfort with the family in front of the telly, shouldn’t the supplier also have this message in mind when they’re trying to persuade a retailer to place an order?
To reach others, we should reflect on what drives us to buy, while remembering that we’re all just people – and that, in the furniture trade, we’re essentially just trying to help each other, and improve each others’ lives through selling good product.
Would an enemy behave like this?
Paul Farley is the editor-in-chief of Furniture News magazine.
