{"id":11391,"date":"2013-02-04T11:25:07","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T16:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smarttan.com\/news\/?p=11391"},"modified":"2013-02-04T11:26:40","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T16:26:40","slug":"better-understanding-your-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/better-understanding-your-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Understanding Your Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The key for any successful business is to be able to anticipate the needs of customers and exceed their expectations, according to the article \u201cGet Inside Your Customers\u2019 Heads: 3 Ways,\u201d from Inc.com. Exceptional businesses differentiate themselves by taking the step from understanding characteristics, demographics and buying habits, to grasping what customers see, hear, think and feel. Here are three ways to get into the minds of yours customers:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Make better use of your data.<\/strong>\u00a0You likely have data on customer characteristics and buying habits in your computer system, so use it! Understand when and where customers make purchases, then try to figure out why. Identify your most profitable customer segments and what sets that group apart. Doing so will help you meet this group\u2019s expectations and take steps to push other customers into that segment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Shift to a more customer-centric business model.<\/strong>\u00a0To improve the customer experience, shift your focus from an organizational or product view to a customer-focused view. Ask yourself questions like: How can I better serve my customers? How do our customers prefer to be reached and how do we fit into that routine? For what value is out customer base willing to pay and at what price?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Explore what your customer truly\u00a0<em>want<\/em>, not just what they are asking for.<\/strong>\u00a0Customers often don\u2019t understand the value of a new offering until they see it. As Henry Ford once said, \u201cIf I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said \u2018faster horses.\u2019\u201d Innovators are able to differentiate what their customers really want from what they are asking for. To do so, try to identify patterns in customer behavior and take action to find a solution that meets the customer\u2019s unmet needs.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.inc.com\/karl-and-bill\/get-inside-your-customers-heads-3-ways.html\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to read the entire article from Inc.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The key for any successful business is to be able to anticipate the needs of customers and exceed their expectations, according to the article \u201cGet Inside Your Customers\u2019 Heads: 3 Ways,\u201d from Inc.com. Exceptional businesses differentiate themselves by taking the step from understanding characteristics, demographics and buying habits, to grasping what customers see, hear, think [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Better Understanding Your Customers - Smart Tan News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The key for any successful business is to be able to anticipate the needs of customers and exceed their expectations, according to the article \u201cGet Inside Your Customers\u2019 Heads: 3 Ways,\u201d from Inc.com. Exceptional businesses differentiate themselves by taking the step from understanding characteristics, demographics and buying habits, to grasping what customers see, hear, think and feel. Here are three ways to get into the minds of yours customers:\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/better-understanding-your-customers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Better Understanding Your Customers - Smart Tan News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The key for any successful business is to be able to anticipate the needs of customers and exceed their expectations, according to the article \u201cGet Inside Your Customers\u2019 Heads: 3 Ways,\u201d from Inc.com. 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