Be Your Customer
Steve Prior
Founder and Managing Partner of Engage | Specialist Marketing for Defence, Engineering and Automotive | Car Enthusiast and Lifelong Learner
‘Where does this number go?’
My colleague thumbed the expensive laminate brochure, directing our client’s gaze to the back page.
It was, we agreed after some deliberation, most likely the plc’s switchboard number, to be answered in the centre of a capital city, but by whom and how we couldn’t say.
So, we called.
And then asked the person who answered about the complex service which the brochure promoted.
To be met with puzzlement.
Polite puzzlement, but puzzlement nonetheless. Because which receptionist can be expected to understand the entirety of a company’s catalogue of capabilities? Or, as a result, where next to direct the call?
Days later, we pointed another client to their website and asked them to find out who to contact with a sales or technical enquiry. Days after that, we were all still looking…
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And only yesterday, I tried personally to purchase tickets for a visitor attraction, only to the find that the website didn’t allow me to, and I had to conduct the transaction on my 6.1-inch telephone screen and not the 36-inch curved screen (which my eyesight prefers) sitting idle before me.
It isn’t always easy to buy your company’s products or services.
Likely as not, they are complex B2B offers and capabilities, they require an explanation, some interaction, some very serious consideration. You personally may be unlikely to buy them.
But one thing you can always do, is to be your customer.
You can always take a step back and assess how a customer will engage with your business: what they might want to know; where they will go to find out; and what they might want to do having satisfied themselves you are the right brand for them, or vice versa.
You can visit your website, call your switchboards, post an email enquiry (if you are one of those businesses who doesn’t like listening to customers) and see how long it takes to hear back. Whether anyone even reads the [email protected] emails. You can visit the factory gate unannounced...
You may not be able to buy your brand, but you can always buy the experience and that will tell you how it feels to be your customer.