Disentangling customer misunderstandings

Markets are conversations. That’s what the Cluetrain Manifesto proclaimed confidently back in 1997. This is fundamental to understanding how marketing works. And a core idea for barefoot insighters. I used to work on Johnson Wax products a very long time ago. The founder Samuel Johnson made his first batch of wax in his bath and then went out and sold it door to door. Phil Knight used waffle irons to shape the rubber on the soles of shoes that we now call trainers. He paid for a design student to design him some logos, one of which was the famous Nike swoosh which is now a global icon. But at the time Phil didn’t like it. But he was out of time so had to make a hasty decision to pick the least worst. The rest, as they say, is history.

Markets always start with an individual or two who has an idea about something they think will sell

And they have an impression about what the customer wants. Frequently the 'customer' turns out to be a figment of their own imagination – what they themselves want. And part of the process of bringing a product to market is finding real customers. People who want what you’ve got to sell.  But it’s a conversation. The maker/salesman has an idea about what will sell. The customer has an idea about what they want to buy. And the process of making, selling, buying, using and repurchasing has all the marks of a conversation. Because both know what they think the topic of the conversation is. They also have an impression of the other party in the conversation and what that other person wants from the exchange. That’s necessary for any kind of conversation to take place.  Barefoot insighters get involved because much of the time this conversation is being conducted at cross purposes. Neither party actually understands where the other party is coming from.

Gerald Zaltman takes it to another level in his book How Customers Think: 'The mind of the market' he says 'Emerges from the interaction of consumers’ and managers’ conscious and unconscious minds'. So it’s not even your ideas that are driving your attempts to make something a customer will want. You have unconscious assumptions that you project onto them. About why they want the product. About how they’ll use it. You may never have put these assumptions into words but it doesn’t mean they aren’t influencing what you are doing. For a start, you are assuming they are in the market and are willing to pay a certain price. If they have bought from you may assume that they know and care about you because they’re loyal customers! Isn’t that right? That is one side of the conversation.

From the customer side there are plenty of unconscious assumptions happening on their side. For a start they want to believe that your product is well made and works properly. That it will last and the price is within their reach. Consumer law means there is a set of regulations about their buyer rights which reduces the risk. They will have an impression about your company based on where you are from. If you are Japanese or Korean or American – that will colour their impressions as to how you operate and what you expect from them.  What is particularly important for customers is whether there are other competitors producing similar products. If there isn’t an established category – if there is only one brand of trainers. Or if you never heard of wax before for shining up floors, it is extraordinarily difficult to buy. If there are lots of competitors it makes it easier to buy because the customer has a choice.
 
So one unconscious assumption is about what the market is doing – what is normal. What will the expert customer buy? What is the best product in the market? These are more deeply unconscious for the customer because, unlike the maker or salesman, they don’t see buying as their job. So they don’t think about it in an organised fashion. And when they go to a supermarket the rate of decision making has to be so instantaneous that they are mostly working on automatic pilot. When you talk to people about why they buy things or what they think of advertising, it is often the first time they have ever thought about or spoken about these things. Which makes them very different from maker/sellers who think about it all the time.

So it won’t surprise you to learn that this market conversation is full of talk at cross purposes

It sort of works, but not very well. So facilitating the conversation and reducing the level of misunderstanding and miscommunication is important. And that’s where barefoot insighters come in. To clear up the miscommunication. You’ll notice this is more than asking the customer to explain themselves. You need to be interrogated as well. Because your assumptions are also driving the conversation. And you may not be fully aware of them. And if you hadn’t already worked this out the unconscious assumptions driving marketers and customers are more influential than the one’s they are aware of. You owe it to yourself to find out what these are.

As a marketer you’ll be asking why you can’t be a barefoot insighter yourself. And the answer is, if you don’t have the budget to hire one then you will have to do the work yourself. But you can see the problem – it’s your own unconscious assumptions that you’ll have to smoke out. And if the customer knows who you are they will focus all of their unconscious assumptions about you on you when you consult them. They won’t give you the whole story. Or they will change it because of who you are. That is why intermediaries are useful. They can wheedle the truth out of both ends of the conversation.

Let me finish with two examples of something you can do to understand that conversation better.

If you get hold of a few customers, take all your products and your competitor products and ask someone to arrange them as a kind of map and to talk about them. The less the person claims to know about the product category the more interesting it gets. What you will find is that they will sort the products into standard categories. Even the people who claim to know nothing about your marketplace. And talk articulately and revealingly about them. We are exposed to so much marketing activity that even if we are not users and know little or nothing about the category, we are usually able to organise it in our heads. If you want to draw out your hidden assumptions about your customers then email me and ask for a questionnaire I designed to do just that.

And explore the wonders of the unconscious.

John Griffiths is the barefoot insighter! He runs his research and planning consultancy Planning Above and Beyond. Email him if you want a copy of the questionnaire.

Read more from John in our Clubhouse.