Crafting the Customer Experience For People Not Like You: How to Delight and Engage the Customers Your Competitors Don't Understand

CHOICE CHANGES EVERYTHING

Treating customers the same was fine then, because customers didn’t have anything close to the multitude of choices that they have now. Everything was scaled back: there was one office supply store, one hardware store, perhaps one or two grocery stores nearby, only one way to see a movie (at the theater) and only one or two different movies (not 20 like today), only a few different kinds of soft drinks, a few brands of jeans, and so on. Today, we have numerous choices in virtually every product category. In some categories, such as soft drinks, there are hundreds of choices: regular and diet carbonated beverages, fruit juices, flavored waters, sports drinks, energy drinks, even “memory-improving” drinks. The same is true of office supplies. You can buy them everywhere: at the big-box office supply retailers, at Walmart or Target; at grocery stores; and in some cases, at gas and convenience stores. This kind of proliferation, whether it’s the kind of product or service itself or the many places that you can get that product or service, leads to choice. And when customers have more choices, they become more selective. And when they become more selective, they will choose to do business with those companies, products, services, or brands that best meet their needs and desires.

When customers have more choices, they become more selective. And when they are more selective, they will choose to do business with those companies that meet their unique needs. ...