Building the right customer relationships is essential for any organisation. It not only increases trust and loyalty, which will result in more repeat business, but also can lead to customers recommending you to their friends or colleagues.
The most successful businesses have a customer-first mentality ingrained into their company culture. But this is easier said than done. How can you achieve this?
Knowing your customer inside out is key. Before you do anything with your business, go on a journey of discovery about your hero customer. Be relentless about finding – and understanding – your target audience and zero in on your hero customer.
Research everything you possibly can about them; what makes them tick, how do they measure success, what are their pain points, and how does your solution make their lives easier and make or save them money?
Feedback is essential. Only once you’re sure you’ve got enough information, do it again, and again before you determine your final persona, your hero customer. Your solution may have many personas it could serve, but find the one that will get you your initial business validation, momentum and traction.
As an example of how important this is, before our company officially launched, WP Engine founder Jason Cohen went as far as offering to pay developers – one of WP Engine’s target audiences – to get to know them and understand their needs. He wanted to understand exactly what challenges they face running a WordPress site, what they needed to make their jobs easier, and what tools they were currently using.
It’s through this upfront invested interest in understanding its customer that WP Engine launched successfully with a solution that filled a gap in the market and exceeded our customer needs.
Taking the time to really get to know your customer and understanding what makes them tick will stand you in good stead when trying to reach your business goals.
Fabio Torlini is Managing Director for WP Engine. Based in London’s Tech City, his main role is helping WP Engine launch their services into Europe. With over 15 years’ experience in the hosting and cloud industry, he has a thorough understanding of all aspects of IT B2B marketing, branding, PR, channel and management. Most notably in his career, Fabio helped build Rackspace to what it has become today – a leader in the cloud industry with revenues of $1.5 billion.
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