7 Tricks To Know Your Customers’ Needs
“Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create raving fans.” — Ken Blanchard
In 2012, the Harvard Business Review published an article about the end of sales processes as we know them. Indeed, customers have become more professional and are now able to identify their needs by themselves.
The notions of sales strategy and methods related to the identification of a need and the proposal of an adapted solution are therefore turned upside down.
On average, almost 60% of the typical purchasing decision process (solution search, offer ranking, needs assessment, price comparison…) is completed before even talking to a supplier.
This means interacting with customers even before they have defined their own needs, as the most successful and experienced professionals have realized.
While a majority of customers tend to learn about a company’s products and services before contacting its sales representatives, the knowledge of sales professionals has not lost any of its value.
In fact, no one is in a better position to interact with a potential customer than a sales professional. The best sales professionals know exactly what questions to ask to find out their customers’ needs and guide them through the sales process.
How do you identify your customers’ needs?
Discover seven essential elements that allow sales professionals to determine their customers’ needs and increase their sales.
1 — Identify your customer’s willingness to change
Once a sales professional can determine whether a customer is willing to change, he or she will have a better idea of whether the customer is willing to challenge the status quo.
The sales representative needs to be involved in the sales process from the beginning to propose an innovative solution when targeting customers with undefined demands who are open to change.
Customers who are looking for change, or who are open to it, are a real gold mine for sales representatives.
2 — Be an active listener to refine your questions
One of the most important elements of your questions is the response of your customers. In fact, it is essential to listen carefully to what your interlocutors have to say, whether they are already part of your customers or not. For example, if a prospect says, “We are looking for a product that is user-friendly and easy to use,” you need to ask them a follow-up question to determine their exact needs.
You need to be as specific as possible in determining your customer’s needs by asking targeted follow-up questions, without making them feel like they are being interrogated. It is a matter of active listening to better identify the client’s deepest wishes.
3 — Identify what prompted your prospect to look at the product or service
This question is much more complex than the traditional “What are you looking for?” In answering it, a prospect is likely to consider, among other things, their current needs, the challenges ahead, or the need to make a change.
Their answer often speaks volumes about their motivations and timing needs. Indeed, they may be faced with a serious problem that requires immediate action or action in the very near future.
It is important to analyze this answer carefully, as a prospect will most likely take time to think it through. It is also essential that this answer be followed up with another quality follow-up question.
If your company’s sales representatives don’t take the time to ask prospects these essential questions, they won’t achieve their goals. According to Docurated’s State of Sales Productivity Report, actual selling makes up only 32% of a sales rep’s workload. The rest of their activity is spent on customer relationship management or researching content to support their sales presentations.
4 — Talk to your customer service
There is a relevant, but often underused, way to learn more about customer needs and understand their motivations: your company’s customer service department. In order to be able to identify customer expectations regarding your products and services, start by developing a questionnaire on specific topics. Also consider adding elements that will help you solve customer problems in your CRM software. With your customer service teams interacting with your customers and prospects on a regular basis, you’ll get answers to your questions and refine your knowledge of their needs and concerns. You can also send a satisfaction questionnaire directly to your customers.
5 — Put yourself in your customers’ shoes
Just like you, customers are human. To analyze the quality of your products and the experience you offer to your customers, it is essential to put yourself in their shoes. To do this, ask yourself the right questions:
- What do you like about your products or services?
- What would you expect from your offer?
- What would motivate you to buy your products or services?
By becoming your own customers, you will better understand their needs and the reasons that push them to contact you or that would be a brake to purchase. However, keep in mind that your needs will be different from those of your customers. That is why you will need to complement this method with other techniques.
6 — Have your products or services tested
Having your offer tested is an effective way to find out what your needs are. To start, set up a panel of consumers similar to your clientele. Then, offer them to try your products or services for a determined period of time. Give these consumers an experience by asking them to follow the same path as a traditional customer. Thanks to this technique, you will be able to collect their impressions on the journey, the quality, the simplicity of use or the design. Based on these opinions, you will be able to improve your sales process and develop your offer.
7 — Use the studies carried out in your sector
You should also know that in your sector of activity, market studies and surveys can be carried out by institutes or by your competitors. These studies are sometimes simply made available on the web. By monitoring, researching and analyzing existing studies, you will gather useful information that will help you better understand the needs and expectations of your target clientele.
How do you know if you have met the customer’s need?
If a company succeeds in making its customers active and return, it is because they are satisfied with its products or services, and therefore that it has well met their needs. But, to know whether or not you have well met your customers’ expectations, you will have to perform some of the following actions
- collect feedbacks ;
- monitor customer indicators;
- monitor the Internet.
The best way to get accurate feedback is to get feedback from your customers. Through feedback, you will be able to detect trends, new needs and clues about changing behaviors. Collecting feedback is a task that you need to perform on an ongoing basis. There are several ways to get feedback from your customers:
- emails;
- customer contact forms on your website
- surveys ;
- satisfaction surveys;
- usability tests;
- comments on social networks;
- customer service and sales;
- Events and trade shows.
Think that when customers are satisfied or dissatisfied with a product, they will express it mainly on the web: comments on social networks, Google reviews or even website or blog articles. This is why it is important to monitor your e-reputation. Tools such as Google Alerts or Mention will allow you to stay on top of what is being said about your company on the web and social networks.
By using performance indicators related to retention, loyalty and customer satisfaction, you will find out if you are meeting the needs of your customers. In addition to KPIs, other indicators allow you to evaluate customer satisfaction: the Net Promoter Score or the customer satisfaction score. All these measures will help you identify the strengths of your offer and especially its weaknesses in order to correct them.
