The 3 Steps To Turn Your Customer Into A Loyal Friend

Written by Veronique Rapetti | Edited by Sabina Samek

In business we are always taught what customer wants, a customer gets. The notion of ‘the customer is king’ is considered to be the most important part of the business strategy. But isn’t that a pretty one-sided type of a relationship? If you always get what you want, wouldn’t you take it for granted? What if there was a more effective customer-centric approach that allows you to deepen customers’ trust without putting them on a pedestal?

As part of our learning programme at NEF (short for New Entrepreneurs Foundation), we recently hosted a workshop on this very topic — customer discovery and marketing tactics led by industry experts Dr Richard Anson and Christina Richardson. What we’ve learned throughout is making your customers trust you and feel truly heard is a vital part of your ultimate success. This kind of relationship gives you almost a cult type advantage of a dedicated crowd of customers that will follow any and all your steps and support you along with all your new ventures with an enthusiasm of a supportive friend.

We’ve put together easy 3 steps to follow if you want to get ahead and reach that sweet spot of a customer friendship that takes your business to the next level.

1. CUSTOMER PROFILING | Who Should You Befriend?

Having customers is an amazing success. Yet, having the right type of customers is even more valuable. The people you want to talk to are the ‘experts’ in the field, keen on trying new things and always talking about the next new thing. By having conversations with them, you’ll be able to understand their traits, values and pains. Based on that, you’ll be able to create a “persona” pinpointing the very specifics about your customers — where they live, what they do, what they read, where they shop, their age etc. (pro tip: To make them more real give them a name!)

2. REACHING STRATEGY | Where To Find Them?

Once you got familiar with them in the previous step, you should be able to identify places where you could meet them and start the conversation. You can also start creating a very basic landing page and see who is signing in. Another example of how to reach ‘them’ is to create events, partnerships with your ‘friends’ in mind. It’s always good to go back to your ‘persona’ and ask yourself — would they like this? Is this up to their ally? If the answer is yes, you’re on the right track! As you build your database of customers, you are also building a pool of people to undertake your customer discovery and development activities. All in all, it’s a win-win!

3. THE RIGHT QUESTIONS | What To Talk About?

Lastly, to minimise the bias in the responses you get you to need to make sure you’re asking the right questions. How to do that? Research! The most helpful book for this is “The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers and Learn If Your Business is a Good Idea” by Rob Fitzpatrick (http://momtestbook.com/ ). The premise of this is to seek independent and objective feedback — because asking your mum whether your idea is good is like asking her whether a fedora hat suits you — the moral of the story: she’s never going to be able to judge you objectively (also, unless you’re a Don Draper, no one can pull off wearing a fedora).

Asking meaningful and non-directive questions will also help you understand their habits, if the pain you are trying to solve is a real pain, what the alternatives are etc.

The way you talk about your product shouldn’t be about your solution just yet, focus on finding out what your customers’ problems are and how they are currently solving them and at what cost. This process allows you to learn more about your customers and ultimately allows you to develop a product that represents the best solution your ‘friends’ could ask for!

To learn more about our 10-month intensive Fast Track programme for aspiring entrepreneurs, visit our website. To apply for September 2019 intake, click here.

This article was written in reference to a blog post “Customer Is King”: Customer Discovery & Development by NEF Programme Director Véronique Rapetti.

For more blogs on entrepreneurship and leadership follow Véronique Rapetti’s LinkedIn.