It’s one of the secrets of business success...
Changing customer habits to do what you want...
Just like brands such as Google, facebook and Kit Kat...
Who earn millions from you changing your habits.
(Creepy alert: Please
don’t use these powerful methods to do creepy things.)
In the last few years, everywhere I go I see people with a
smart phone. It’s unbelievable. I stand on the train platform and people are
either texting or on the internet. I’m in the restaurant and people are sharing
photos. I’m walking down the street and tourists take pictures on their phone;
there’s no such thing as the instant camera anymore. And then I go on facebook
out of habit and see people’s new pictures that are uploaded.
Is it any wonder that people involved in smart phones from
the manufacturer of the chips, the phones, and even facebook are making all the
money at the moment? People are habitually using these gadgets and tools. Go
back ten years and hardly anyone did these things. Young people today will not
understand when you tell them people socially sat at restaurants without anyone
bringing out a phone.
These companies are doing two magical things to make
millions by changing customer habits:
1.
Creating value
2.
Changing customer habits
Replacing customer habits
Now you might not be able to go out and create and mass
manufacture a smart phone to challenge Nokia. However, you can use training to
work on replacing customer habits in your industry.
You may be able to help your customer by training them to
use your product in a way that is better than the way they do tasks with their
existing product. So let’s say you have an electronics kit that a sound
engineer uses, you can train the engineer to get better results with your kit
than a competitors. Once the engineer gets used to it, the engineer will
continue to use yours out of habit.
Imagine that, just a bit of training will cause someone to
start using your product instead of a competitor. (Just don’t show the dog how
to beg for steak!)
Adding customer habits
Work with customers to find out new ways they can use your
product by adding customer habits. Customers will always want to get the best
use out of products and services they have paid for. So if they can do more
tasks then they originally bought the product for, they will naturally use it
of other tasks. To do this, keep in contact and offer bits of training for
additional features.
The best thing about adding customer habits is that the more
uses your customer has for your product and service, the less likely they are
likely to change to another supplier. Even if your business makes mistakes or
does something wrong. The fact that your product or service is relied on for so
many tasks makes it really hard for a customer to change to another vendor.
All you need to do now is turn your coffee machine into a toasty
maker too!
Removing customer habits
Sometimes you will have a customer or prospect that has been
used to doing a task in a certain way for months or even many years, so your
focus is training them by removing customer habits.
Imagine you have a customer that already uses your
sophisticated software system and only use it at the moment for storing
documents. When they create company notices it is normally sent by email or they
pin up messages on a company board. If people read the email then they see the
message, if not, it’s just one out of 100 emails a day they get.
If you want them to use your intranet system then you might
train the administrator to post on the intranet system, and following this, train
the administrator how to train department managers to train staff how to access
the intranet. You could even train the administrator how to put a link on the
emails to the intranet too for new notices and to access all sorts of company
information. Now the intranet will be habitually accessed and no-one ever
misses a company notice.
So is it really possible for your business to create a way
for customers to change their habit so they cannot live without your product? Well,
here is an example to show it happens all the time. When you want to know
something, have you ever heard people say: “Google it.” Noticed how this has
replaced the encyclopaedia. (Another one where young people may never know what
it’s like to see a book shelf of A-Z encyclopaedia to research subjects;
because our habits have changed.)
If not, can you find a way to train customers to habitually
use your product? Think of Kit Kat: their advertising is trying to train you in
the habit of having a Kit Kat on your break if you are hungry.
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