How many of us are bombarded with advertisements touting that “we are the fastest, cheapest, best...the “estest” of any product/service? From Brazil to Beijing and from unsolicited cell phone calls to online banner ads, it is a non-stop nuisance! How demeaning it is to be viewed merely as a dollar value for some marketer who is desperately trying meet his/her KPIs? Don't we need a bit of empathy? Somebody who understands what we need and exactly deliver that? (or deliver nothing if we need nothing!).
Currently,
new product/service development and marketing needs a paradigm shift
from being “estest” to identifying the “inging” of
the product/service. So what exactly is inging? Let's take an example
of gym. It is not a rocket science to recognize that a gym is the
place of excercising.
But do you really think everyone goes to a gym for exercising?
Being a gym enthusiast, I can say this with certainty that exercising
is just a functional purpose
of going to gym. The rational purpose
of going to a gym could toning,
body building,
slimming
etc. Depending upon the rational purpose of exercising, the intensity and frequency of training
and other aspects e.g. dieting
and living
(i.e lifestyle) have to be modified. For instance, for slimming
one cannot follow a body building
program and dieting
habits or go on binge drinking
and yet expect to loose weight. Thus, inging allows for a
product/service to be “customized” and deliver maximum value to
the customer. This paradigm shift to inging requires asking a series
of “why” questions until one has identified the rational purpose
of the product/service.
A
clear insight into the rational purpose of a product/service will
reveal product/service attributes and
consumer benefit, which is
critical for customization. For instance, for nighttime diapers for
babies, the product attribute is dryness, consumer benefit is better
sleep and rational purpose is healthy baby development. Diapers just
happen to be a medium to deliver these needs to the parents. These
insights into identifying the rational purpose, product/service
attributes and consumer benefit are essential for an entrepreneur to
develop a marketable minimum viable product (MVP). Any MVP
iteratively developed based on these insights will have a higher
success during customer/consumer validation phase. This view on
co-developing the product/service development is well articulated by
Joanne Bischmann, VP Marketing, Harley-Davidson (currently VP
Communications) in this quote - “Marketing
and product development are so intertwined
at Harley-Davidson that it's hard to say where one ends and the other
begins. That's one reason our motorcycles get the response they do
from the riders. It also keeps us intensely focused on fulfilling
customers dreams in everything else we do” (emphasis
mine).
Integral
to inging is to understand the distinction between between customer
(i.e. one who is buying = dollar value) and consumer (i.e. one
who is using = experiential value). This distinction is often
blurred in B2C sales because one who pays may also use the
product/service but, as in the gym and diaper example above, there
are exceptions to this rule. In contrast, customer-consumer
uncoupling is distinct in B2B sales where the customer is a company
whereas consumer is usually an employee of the company. In companies
with a command-control (i.e. top down) culture, it can prevent
entrepreneurs/marketers from identifying the exact needs of the
consumers (and hence of the company), which can misdirect MVP
development. In contrast, in bottom-up companies that decentralize
and empower the employees leads to better understanding of their
needs and requirements. Entrepreneurs/marketers have to ensure that they are in touch with the consumer and not just the customer during the phase of iterative MVP development.
In
either cases of B2B or B2C businesses, there are only 3 outcomes
following customer/consumer validation - (i) disappointment, (ii)
satisfaction or, (iii) delight. Disappointment results from failing
to deliver the promise or meet the expectations whereas satisfaction
is being able to meet them. Customer/consumer delight results from
far exceeding their needs and expectations. A delightful experience
is a transformed consumer/customer who will remain loyal not only to
the product/service but also to the company and thus have longer
life-time value. For instance, Apple has sometimes failed to delight
the customers on some of their products or features e.g. the antennae
issue in their first iPhone, maps and more recently in bending of the
iPhone 6 models. Yet, they have a loyal customer/conusmer following
because Apple has scored overall higher on the number of “delight
points” across experiential journey of the user. Thus, to
summarize, customer-centricity uses a “sales-centric” approach
i.e. what we (entrepreneurs/marketers) want whereas
consumer-centricity uses a “journey-centric” approach i.e what
they (consumers) want. In today's highly competitive environment, to
prevent commoditization of products/service, a consumer-centric
strategy and focus on experiential value of products/services is
paramount because experience cannot be commoditized.
