Name: Meaningful
Rating: 4.2 (23 reviews)
Author: Bernadette Jiwa

What’s in it for me? Learn which ideas, products and services your customers will connect with!

What is a company without customers?

Exactly – it’s nothing.

However, most companies don’t have a very good understanding of what it takes to connect with, and thereby retain their customers. For these companies, marketing and product development are still about creating a need for a product that the company has already produced.

But some companies have a different way of connecting with customers: finding out what they need and what matters to them. By understanding their customers, such companies are able to lead innovation and brand awareness, maximizing customer satisfaction and creating a meaningful relationship for both company and customer.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

how pictures of Jennifer Lopez’s gave rise to Google Images;
what fatal misstep Apple made at the launch of the iPhone 6; and
that Mary Anderson understood customer connection more than a century ago.

Stay relevant to your customers by understanding what they really want.

Tons of new products and services enter the market every day. And some of them are the result of a truly innovative idea: those products and services that make your life easier, more enjoyable and, simply put, better. But a great product doesn’t guarantee customer satisfaction.

In fact, the customers of today want products and services that truly take their needs seriously. It hasn’t always been like this. In the past, a taxi driver wouldn’t worry too much if a customer was grossed out by his cab, because it was unlikely that the two would ever meet again. Bad customer experiences didn’t affect business.

But with apps like Lyft and Uber, that’s all changing.

That’s because Lyft measures how long your ride lasts, who drove you and what your experience was like. As a result, the focus is put on the quality of the ride, and the customer’s voice is absolutely essential.

So, what does this mean for business in general?

That it’s key to stay relevant to your customers. And that means tracking their behavior and gearing your product or service toward their way of life. A great example is the way Google developed Google Images.

It began as a search engine just like countless others, but became a household name by showing users not just what they search for, but what they want. So, Google’s success wasn’t about tech-savvy developers, but about carefully observing customers and intelligently using the knowledge this observation afforded.

For example, at the 2000 Grammy Awards, Jennifer Lopez donned a see-through Versace dress with an open neckline. The dress became so famous that it got its own Wikipedia page, but also presented a problem that Google had to solve. The dress rapidly became (up to that point) the most googled thing ever; people were dying to see photos of it. Hence, the birth of Google Images.

Produce successful products by putting yourself in your customers’ shoes – or at least watching them take a few steps.

The digital age and the dawn of the internet have made opportunities a dime a dozen; everyone has the chance to innovate, as well as connect with others, all over the globe. So why do some companies still totally outshine the competition? One word: empathy.

Innovation isn’t just about making new, improved products. It’s about designing things that truly matter to the people who use them.

Customers don’t just buy a commodity. They buy a value system.

So, customers are looking for something more and their options are more abundant than ever. But how can your business deliver what your customers want?

Actually, all successful companies share a common characteristic: they connect emotionally with their customers. Customers are no longer the passive consumers they used to be; they’re partners, co-creators and community members who want to engage with the companies they buy from. They want brands that will commit to them.

Innovation means solving life’s hidden problems.

In the year 1902, a woman named Mary Anderson visited New York. Like most people of her time, she toured the city on a streetcar. One rainy day, Mary noticed how the road devolved into chaos as the drivers’ windshields became increasingly difficult to see through.

So, though many people assume that windshield wipers were always a standard automotive feature, they actually came from Mary Anderson’s determination to solve this invisible problem. This term was coined by Tony Fadell, CEO of Nest, the thermostat and alarm company. It describes problems that we run into every day – so often that they become normalized and we don’t even see them as problems.

Understand your customer’s perspective and create a story that resonates with it.

OK, so your customers’ feelings and problems are important, but to truly innovate you’ll need to understand more than that. You’ve got to understand how customers will actually use your product. That means learning about their worldview – the way they perceive things based on experiences, beliefs and culture.

For instance, IKEA took 6 years to open its first store in South Korea because they knew it was essential to first understand the unique culture of the country and the worldviews of its citizens. In fact, IKEA’s 360 stores worldwide vary tremendously from country to country.

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