I don't know about you, but if there is one good thing that has come out of this pandemic, it's the extra time it has given me to continue my learning journey.
And whilst the 'zoom fatigue' is real, I've managed to find some really incredible webinars and courses to attend which keep me engaged, and furiously scribbling down notes for the whole hour.
Over the past month, I've attended 5 of the Marketing Association's #NZMarketingDisrupted courses, mostly held over the lunch break, but the last couple a little earlier to cater for the international speakers dialing in from different time zones.
In the first, we heard from Dr Peter C. Wilton from the BerkeleyHaas School of Business, University of California. He spoke about 'Reframing Value: The Disruption Opportunity', and gave an insightful look into the Innovation Spectrum, Innovation Risk, and two paths to Organisational Resilience.
We need to ask ourselves, "Am I product focused or customer focused?"
I think for most tourism businesses, we'd like to answer that we are customer focused, but are your customers able to answer these three questions for your business?
1) Does this solve a problem?
2) Does it fulfil my aspirations?
3) Does it offer me a better experience?
Put yourselves in the shoes of your customer, really look at it from their viewpoint. Are there pain points in the booking process, or finding directions to get to you? What are your customers looking for out of your experience. Are you delivering it every time?
If you are truly customer focused, you will be in a better position to help your customers fulfil their aspirations in a really honest and authentic way.
So how do you do this? Let go of your ambitions and aspirations and really switch on your customer mindset. This is all about how you can help your customer. Take notice of what happens around you when you are the customer, what do you like? And what annoys you? Then take a look to see if any of these things happen in your business, and how you can train yourself and your team to be better.
Be honest and sincere with your customer, they will definitely feel this and respond in kind. We all need customers to make our businesses good, but having a focus on the customer mindset will create deep mutual connections with our customers to turn them into raving fans, and as a result make your company go from good to great.
Let me know how you do this in your business in the comments below.