Falling In Love With Your Customer

I heard about the concept of falling in love with your customer many years ago, but it was the current uncertain climate that inspired me to write about it here. The basic premise is as follows: When companies are primarily focused on the products they build, things tend to work out just fine. However, when companies fall in love with their customer, market leadership becomes a real possibility. As a UX designer, the idea of falling in love with users is near and dear to my heart. However, I understand that it cannot be done alone, and that it requires a cultural embrace in order for it to bear fruit. While there are many ways to run a business, there are two which particularly stand out to me. The first involves creating a culture where employees are relentlessly focused on the products they build. In these companies, solutions look like what you’d expect to see in the market. What customers can do with you, they can usually do with someone else, aside from one or two key differentiators. For the most part, these companies tend to work out just fine. And then there are the companies where fine isn’t good enough.

Finding love

Rather than falling in love with their products, these companies fall in love with their customers. They live and breath the deeply rooted pains and desires of their customers, because they understand that the only way to become, and more importantly, retain market leadership, is to understand and meet their customers’ needs better than anyone else. They don't have to be big corporations either. Think of the small-town baker who knows every customer by name, what they like, what they value. When the bread supply is low, that baker is still able to deliver value, because she knows what the customer needs. If she had solely been in love with her own bread, she’d wouldn’t know how to serve her customer when she runs out of flour. The same concept applies to organizations of any scale. When companies fall in love with their customers, they are more flexible, more adaptable, and ultimately more successful, because they’re not tied to their products. They’re simply tied to the ever changing needs of their customers. In this model, products fit the customer needs, whatever they may be at the time. In turn, customers can’t help but appreciate you more than anyone else, thus becoming loyal fans. And it’s only loyal fans who tell others how much they love you.

Embracing love

Tactically, there are a million and one ways to do this, but that’s not the point of this article. Rather, I aim to put forth what I believe to be the only true way to win customer loyalty for life, in hopes that you, and I, consider what it means to fall in love with our customer. We may offer a good product at the right time, but what happens when a better product comes along? By focusing relentlessly on falling in love with the customer, it doesn’t matter what other products exist, because we’ve taken the time to develop a deep relationship with our customer. As a business, we find a way to adapt, because we understand what our customers need at a human level. We simply cannot do that when we’re solely focused on the products we build. It’s the norm for companies to look at their products as primary, and the customer as secondary, or perhaps even tertiary. However, I encourage everybody, including myself, to learn how to fall in love with our customers and our users, so that we’ll do anything to meet their needs, regardless of how.

Choosing to love

By putting the spotlight on the products we build, we’re taking away the spotlight from our customers’ needs. Imagine spending a whole day with a customer and getting to know the person behind the title. Imagine seeing the name of a brand we serve and immediately thinking of a personal connection you’ve made with an employee who works there. Imagine knowing your customers just like a local baker knows her patrons. While falling in love with our customers entails a culture shift, we can start to ask ourselves better questions today.

• What do my customers and users care about deeply?

• What keeps my customers and users up at night?

• What motivates my customers and users to show up at work every day?

• What values do my customers and users hold near and dear to their heart?

In closing, I believe companies who lead are the ones who meet customer needs better than anyone else. I also know that you don’t get answers to the above questions overnight. You have to dig. You must spend more time with customers and users than anyone else, so you can get to know them better than anyone else. And only through developing this deep relationship will you be able to meet their needs better than anyone else. I’m inspired by a culture where every employee, regardless of role, has a fundamental, rich understanding of the people it serves. I’m inspired by a culture where a deep understanding of the humans we serve drives the products we build. I’m inspired by a culture where we show up to work because we truly care about the people we serve, simply because we’ve gotten to know them better than anyone else. I’m inspired to help. But I can only help if I understand.