Today we’re talking about the second step common to any customer experience. If you missed my post about how to spot and act on the very first step of your customer experience, you can catch up by reading Step 1: The Triggering Need

The LEARN step, from your customer’s point of view

In step 2, your prospect is acting on the realization of a need, problem or desire. They are looking for, and learning about options to solve their need, so let’s call this the LEARN step. For them, LEARN means:

To search for and collect options that appear credible to solve my problem.

The search may be nearly instantaneous (think about your last impulse purchase) or take months, but in any case your prospects goal is to create a mental “short list” of good options to consider in further detail.  What makes an option worthy? What does “good” mean? Good options generate a simple statement of confidence in your prospect’s mind: “This looks like it might work for me.”

You might be thinking this is a pretty low standard. But it’s not low. It’s personal. Said differently, ”good” is something that looks like a credible idea to solve the problem. ”Good” options may be a wide variety of products or services. If my problem is stiffness in my neck, I may choose a different pillow, a yoga class, a massage, or a pain reliever. If my problem is cutting the waste out of my company’s supply chain, I may consider an internal team, a consultant, or new suppliers. (Puts you in an interesting competitive field, doesn’t it?)

This is carried out by instinct, based on the knowledge and perceptions your prospect already has. He is thinking, “Maybe this. Certainly not that. My sister told me that is great. . .”

Prospective customers need this discreet step before trying things in more detail, and whether they are conscientiously aware of it (they often aren’t), they go through it every time. When shopping for cars a consumer selects a small number to test drive, based on the basic criteria they find most important. When a benefits administrator shops health plans for the company’s employees, he or she choose candidates based on basic reputation, and perceived breadth of coverage, quality, price, and kind of relationship.

From inside your company: EARNING CONSIDERATION

From your organization’s perspective, your goal at this step is to simply make the target customer’s short list of good options. You must EARN their consideration.  So for you this step is:

To plan and take deliberate steps that win a prospect’s consideration and a place on their list of credible options.

There are three requirements for your organization to achieve the payoff of consideration (translation: a hefty pipeline of demand):

Be in the right place at the right time. Help your customers find you easily, when and where they would naturally go looking. Even better, discover what your customers are doing when they first realize they have a need, and be there.

Talk to your customers in their language. Use their vocabulary and encourage everyone in your organization to relate to their state of mind and attitudes at this step. This means translating everything – from business cards to your answer to “what does your company do?” – from business-speak to words your customers use to describe their need and solution to a peer.

Know when to stop talking. Have the discipline, patience, and confidence to do and say just enough to introduce yourself. Your goal here is to make the short list, not secure the win. The marketer in a us wants to share everything we want a customer to know. Resist. Resist. (Did I say?) Resist.

Reflect on the criteria your customer will use to draft their short list. Since their goal here is to find merely reasonable options and not the perfect answer (yet), they’re looking for the most pure, important, authentic, thing you can say.

So how are you doing? You can use the metrics you probably already track to know if your customer experience is making or costing your organization money at this LEARN / EARN step. But that’s a different post for another day.

If you want to learn more about defining your customer experience, why earning consideration is essential, and how it can help you drive better financial performance, pick up a copy of Domino. The book offers peer examples, how-to exercises, and the business metrics you can use to know you’re on track.