Creating an emotional bond with prospects and customers delivers huge benefits. Unfortunately, many teams responsible for the customer journey don’t have the knowledge or insight it takes to achieve that.
How important is that insight?
Ask Apple or Harley Davidson. Their customers tour the country telling others about them. They sleep overnight in the rain to buy the latest product. They tattoo themselves with their favorite company’s logo.
To create that level of bonding is hard in B2B. The stakeholders and the team responsible for your customer journey have to build deep individual and collective knowledge of their customers.
They have to walk in their customer’s shoes literally, or in this case swim in their pond!
- Spend time on the job with them
- Understand what gets them up each morning
- Know what they struggle with and celebrate each day
- Know their internal processes, requirements and politics for acquiring new solutions
- Know the hoops they are going to have to jump and the alligators they are fighting as they attempt something new
- Know who they interact with and why
- Understand how they are measured
- Attend their trade shows
- Spend time with them and their customers
This deep understanding releases your organization’s creativity and effectiveness. It’s what allows them to deliver a customer journey that creates a deep personal bond with your brand because of they know how to create the value, trust and responsiveness needed at each stage of the journey.