[MUSIC] I remember when I bought this one, or actually the first one some years back. It was actually the worst phone I've ever had in life, and I remember that I actually told them. The people who sold it to me. It was really good, Until I tried to use it as a phone. Because I remember, when I can press one button and another button and then directly call my wife. Why did I buy it? Well, I bought it mainly for fun. But it is interesting to observe that in less than three months, I started using it. I used it as a computer, I started in sending emails, etc. So, gradually it become some kind of gain for me. It became something different than a phone. And nowadays, I would say, it's a pain if I don't have it. These phones are really good examples of where a product can go from you buy something for fun and then, end up having it as a pain if you don't have it. It's a radical change of use during time. So, how come I don't buy a new version at this second? I'm delighted, yes, if I see one but I don't buy it anyhow. Sometimes, we have to wait for a customer. Sometimes, we give everything that they need but they still don't buy. There's spoken needs, I can orally explain to you why I want something. These kinds of needs are fairly simple in order to understand and to meet. People can articulate their needs. And in that reach, they do what they say. If they say, I have this need and we provide it, they'll buy the service. But most of the times we have unspoken wishes instead of spoken needs. And a wish is really difficult to articulate. Don't ask me about my wishes. Try to understand me instead and give it to me. And when I see it, I'd say, I want it. These kind of phones was probably at the beginning a really good case of that. Would you like to buy this black box from me that could deliver everything? No, I don't know, I don't have the need. But, when I got it, I could see it, I could touch it, I could feel it, I could say, yes, it fulfilled my wishes. It's actually for us as providers trying to understand the customer better than they do themselves. We delight them, we give them everything they want and give them more than they expect. That's actually what we mean by saying delighted customer. But, what happens is we always make them delighted. After a while, they'll forget the delight. Which means that we sometimes need to under-delivery in order to deliver something good again so they see the value of it. Here is a classical model, it comes from psychology, but it's extremely well-used in marketing and sales. What kind of need do we as individuals have? Well on the basic level is about surviving, food, health, water and gradually, we will move up the ladder. And in a lot of countries today, the big need is actually on the highest level. I buy this phone mainly in order to make a statement. It's not a need. I wouldn't die if I didn't have it, but it helps. Trying to map a product or new service in this kind of model is normally quite simple and quite useful. Does it help with self-esteem? In certain situations, however, this model is really difficult to understand and actually to apply. Normally, we would say that friends and love come after food, but in some cases it's actually the opposite. Today, there are a lot of refugees on the globe. To a lot of them, this is something crucial. To a lot of them, it's a bigger need to have this phone and a good connection compared to having a bed. How come? Well, if you're a refugee, you'd like to know where all your relatives are and that's a big need. In that sense, I wouldn't say that me, personally, have that kind of need. So to all of them, going back to the model, the iPhone or another smartphone by the way, I'm not trying to sell a product to you, is actually on the lowest level. And to me, it might be on the higher level. When we develop new technology, there is always a pattern. Some buy it before others. We call them early adopters. In average, we would say that tech savvy people have a tendency of being earlier adopters than others. But, looking around on the globe nowadays, we've see a lot of interesting new kind of customer segments, like old people. People around 70 have a tendency of loving that smart tablets. They're big, they're good for the thumb. The 4 P-model is a classical one with a lot, product, placement, price, promotion is an extremely common rational model trying to understand what customers want. In that kind of model, it's normally not a group decision. Take it in practical terms. I decided myself to buy this one. I never called my wife, I never called my children, I never called Martin and said, do you think I should have it? I bought it by myself. In this kind of model, I'm an individual and a psychological being meaning, that love, sex, whatever, matters. But in industrial situations, we normally have a tendency of selling to a person in a role. It's a purchasing manager, it's a quality manager, it's a R&D manager, it's a CFO. And we have a tendency of skipping the psychological part of the individual. We also have a tendency of talking about it in terms of more rational terms. I'll buy the product simply because it's good. Is this good? Well, If you meet a tech savvy person, he normally could give you good suggestion why it's good quality, a good product, etc. But, if we really make a technological structured analysis of it, we would see that maybe not a big difference. So, maybe I have it for certain other reason. In the industrial world, we normally talked about group decisions and try to find the gatekeeper. Who does actually decide if they're going to buy this product from us? Is this the guy at quality? Is it the woman head of HR? Is the CFO or whatever? That's a fundamental different kind of world comparing to sell to you as an individual. But, on the other hand, these are only models. So if we look at it in real life, it's not to take for granted which model to use where in order trying to understand the customer. I buy a Coke, yes. But maybe because my family told me that they do like Coke. In that sense, it might be a group decision. And by the way, it's actually everything for me. The only problem I have with it today is actually that my youngest son. He claims it to be only a toy for older people. Customers constantly change perception, so maybe he's right. How to explain your choice of digital tools? Take Dropbox as an example. Why did I buy for it? Why did I pay $99 in order to get a cloud solution for my files? Was it a part of a statement? Was it in need? Yeah, it actually my sense, my question, my situation a certain need because my file archive was full. What we see more and more in terms of customers today is not trying to understand the customer but trying to understand the situation. More on that later on. [MUSIC]
