Increasing sales and lowering costs are the main targets of all businesses. In our last post, we discussed some useful tips to drive up sales. If you haven’t read that yet, go take a look at it first. Today we are diving in-depth on the first thing on that list – how to sell according to your customer needs!

One of the core strategies to achieve success in business is to make it customer-focused. Yet,  sometimes organizations feel over-confident that they know what their customer wants. This leads to planning a product launch, jump-starting a marketing campaign, or releasing a new content that flops.

Understanding customer needs is critical for the long-term success of any business. Every decisions and action of your business should be to fulfill customer needs, wants and demands.

So, let us jump into the details and look into what the customer need actually means.

What Is A Customer Need?

In the simple words, customer’s need make them buy something. It is the motive that drives the customer to purchase a product.

We can divide customer needs into two basic types:

• Product Needs, and
• Service Needs

You may have a great product or service, but if it doesn’t fulfill customer needs it’s not going to sell. Even giant corporations failed because they didn’t meet the needs of the customers. You can look up the cautionary tales of the Amazon’s Fire Phone and Barnes & Noble’s Nook to know how important it is to understand your customer needs.

Let us look at some pointers that will help you to put your customers first!

The Types Of Needs

1. Functionality:

Customers can have a great number of functional needs. For example, solutions to saving time, reducing risk, simplifying and reducing effort are a few of the functional needs. If you want to succeed, design your product or service to meet customer’s functional needs.

2. Convenience:

Customers look for product or services that are convenient and easy to use. So your offerings should align with customer convenience needs.

3. Experience:

Customers want a good experience using the product or service. What you are selling should provide a great experience to the customers to meet the customer experience needs. If your product or service creates more work for them, you will end up with unhappy customers.

4. Options:

Customers want the freedom of choice when they make a purchase. Every customer is different, and their wants also differ. Offering a variety of products or services can help you to meet the customer options needs.

Even if you know all the types of customer needs, fulfilling them is not a child’s play. However, you can get most of it right if you place yourself in the shoes of your customer. Think from their point of view, and you will find the ideal product or service to meet their needs.

Your customers do not want to hear how good your products are or how awesome your company is. Their only concern is meeting their needs. The business that will meet the customer needs best will succeed.

One recipe to success is to sell a service instead of only a product.

Sell A Service – Not Just A Product!

Almost every offering in this world is a mix of both products and services. Some just have a higher ratio of the product such as a retail store, and some have a higher ratio of service such as the barber shop. However, there is no business that sells only a product or only a service.

Focusing on the service part of the business, even if you are selling a product will help you meet your customer needs.

Customer service is an important part of online business. Since the customer does not physically see the product they are buying, having a responsive and helpful customer service will go a long way to reduce friction.

How To Sell A Service?

• After a customer purchase from your online store, email them walkthroughs and instructions with the order confirmation. This will help reduce the confusion and technical questions.
• Ask for your feedback from your customers and take it seriously. It will help you develop your business and will also make your customers happy.
• Make your relationship with your customer long-term. A long-term, good relationship will help you to get repeat customers. It is easier to find repeat customers than new ones, so keep your relationships active with rewards and gifts to loyal customers.

Customers buy something because they believe it will satisfy their needs and solve their problems. It’s always important to remember that your products are not going to sell without meeting your customer needs.