Customer strategy and disruption

Create a real customer relationship

Re-imagine your customer strategy and be disruptive.

Customer strategy is the process of increasing your revenue by better understanding and anticipating your customers' changing needs and improving your response to them. Implementing a customer strategy almost always has a disruptive effect on your business, and - if effective - on entire markets

Many companies want to be like Airbnb: a disruptive force created from a deceptively simple idea that disrupts the market and wipes out the competition. And yet, despite increased spending on innovation, only a few ever achieve that status. The reason? Their (lack of) customer strategy.

Getting back to basics

Focus on the tasks at hand.

Too often, companies focus exclusively on their products or internal processes.

But they would do better to focus on what Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen calls "Jobs To Be Done": what do your customers expect to get when they use your services or products?

Distancing the competition

Identifying the "Job To Be Done" is not easy.

The Jobs To Be Done theory provides companies with a powerful tool to outpace the competition.

For example: Apple's real value is not really in selling laptops and smartphones, but in connecting, sharing content and applications, and enabling you to unleash your creative or professional potential.

And the most successful breweries don't just sell drinks either: they sell an unforgettable experience. Drinks only work as a catalyst for a social experience where people come together and connect.

Creating links

Identify what clients are trying to achieve.

In the age of Big Data, many marketers and product developers tend to focus only on customer profiles and the correlations between them, and not enough on what customers are trying to achieve in specific circumstances.

The problem is not that there is not enough data available - far from it - but that it is not of sufficient quality. This means that companies need to talk to their customers, but also to their non-customers, to identify specific needs in their market that are not being met today.

Transcending the routine

What do your customers and prospects really want?

But let's face it: many companies don't have the time or the means to define a clear customer strategy. They spend too much time updating their e-shops, developing and producing new products and getting them to the customer as efficiently as possible to really think about the "need" behind it all.

How can companies move beyond this routine? The most important prerequisite is "critical awareness": there needs to be a group of influential people within the organization who are willing to see things from the customer's perspective - and beyond. The key is to develop "extreme empathy" for the customer, which will guide all your processes and decision-making.

Feedback loop

Use your data to validate or reject your original hypothesis.

So, have companies like Airbnb or Uber done extensive market research and developed a flawless plan before launching? Of course not! Once your idea is clearly defined, start experimenting. Take note of the effects of your strategy on real-life situations. Identify what works and what doesn't.

This "double-loop" learning is used by data-driven companies: they collect data and refuel their customer strategy with it to adjust their vision, values and assumptions.

The key elements of an effective customer strategy are continuous feedback and adaptation of positioning.

What delaware can do for you

delaware has over 15 years of experience in business, marketing and the technologies that support them, so we are uniquely positioned to help you develop and implement a strategy that will enable you to truly connect with your customers.

We help you define a disruptive vision that transcends your day-to-day operations and provide proven analytical methods to test it.

How can we help you?

Raising awareness through workshops, business games and targeted audits
Define improvement programs and propose a vision, strategy and roadmap
Execute your business transformation
Build your business process architecture, control it and train your staff to use it

Why choosing delaware?

We propose a structured approach
We combine business and technology in an innovative way
We work closely with your team
We have 15 years of experience in business transformation in a wide range of sectors