How to Know Your Ideal Customer?

“It is very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.”

~ Elon Musk, CEO Tesla

Be it the bygone business era, or the contemporary tech-savvy business age, consumers have always been an integral part of a company’s journey towards success or failure. Irrespective of the stream of a business, or what a company sells, its continuance depends entirely upon customers’ loyalty and retention. But how to develop a consumer base? Is there any way an organisation can target the right customers? Who are those ‘right’ customers? How to maintain a good business-to-consumer relationship? Let us find the answers to all these.

How to Target the Right Customers? Who are the ‘Right’ Customers?

Every customer has different requirements from certain products or services. This means that what a business offers might be a good fit for a certain bunch of consumers, while it might be of absolutely no use to the rest. In such a scenario, it seems impossible to make the disinterested lot see the vital offerings of your business. Hence it becomes vital to recognise that section of consumers which would serve to accelerate your industrial growth. But how?

• The first step in achieving the right customer is to understand who is the ‘right’ customer. An ideal customer is the one whose requirements are completely met by the services being offered by your company.

• It is important to know your company’s services and products, not as a seller or service provider, but as a buyer or a consumer. To step into a consumer’s shoes is to know the worth of your services. In clear terms, define your services or products.
• Are your goals well recognised? - To have multiple clients and to have an ideal client are two different aspects of a business. The aim here is to determine various strategies that could bring back the customers who have sought your services once. A satisfied customer is more likely to seek your services again and that satisfaction comes from efficient business strategies.
• Customer interaction analysis- There is no business that has not come across a bad business-customer handling experience. This could be owing to multiple factors, such as longer wait time, major time zone differences, lack of knowledge of customer’s requirement, etc. A peep into such past interactions would serve to highlight the problem areas. Did a certain group of customers have a common issue? Were the service providers unavailable during customer’s requirement? At the same time, acknowledge the previous accomplishments, client testimonials, etc.
• Design the customer profile – This step involves getting acquainted with all the consumer traits to understand who is being targeted.

• Know the benefits that your clients or customers are seeking along with your products or services.
• Is there a particular time or season when your regular or ideal customers seek your services?
• Are your ideal customers following some specific strategy of buying your products or services? What is the convincing factor in their decision to buy your products?
• Do you know your customer’s demographics? This includes knowing the age group, gender, geographical location, profession, etc. of the ideal customers. Knowing these statistics would help in getting a more specific picture of the ideal customers.
• Are your services well within the budget of your major clientele? An incredibly highly-priced service or product might be a low point in retaining or winning a customer’s interest. At the same time, a rock bottom price might undervalue the services being offered. It is therefore important to study your ideal customers’ budget.

How to Maintain the B2C Relationship?

It is in an organisation’s ability to know its customers’ plan and approach that defines its future success or downfall in this rapidly growing industrial era. Once the ideal consumers are recognised, a customer-centric approach is recommended. A company can take various important measures to ensure complete customer satisfaction to maintain a strong ideal customer base. Some vital steps to achieve this are:

• Integrating CRM tools across the business departments, implementing AI software, etc. to give your customers timely responses to their grievances or requests.
• To acknowledge customers about new offers or products, which can be done by connecting apps that help an organisation to stay connected with their customers at all times.
• By conducting surveys.
• By approaching the customers for feedback through e-mails, calls, or SMS.

The primary goal has to be to be able to serve the right clientele and not a versatile one. After all, business is all about understanding the importance of marketing strategies and tailor those to suit the specific consumers’ requirements.