How to Best Get to Know Our Customer

We enter a bar and ask for a beer. The bartender makes us wait, or even worse, attends us rudely. Most probably we won’t be coming back to this bar, because as the customers we are, we expect to be treated kindly and efficiently. This is what we pay for. Supply and demand rule the world we live in, but it’s not always throughout our life that our business has been treated with this mindset. Sometimes we sell, other times we buy.

In this case, we are talking about a big globally-known food and beverage provider. This entity, like any other, needs to “pamper” and take care of its customers and retain them for the long term. Who are those customers?

The bartenders and baristas are the owners of the places that serve us that beer and that in turn need to supply the product for sale. In Spain, there are more than 20,000 openings and closings of bars and restaurants, which show that we are talking about a very volatile market.

The owner needs a close relationship with the supplier company and in many cases, that relationship is lost along the way due to various factors. The emotional bond, an essential element in any area of life, is also obviously present in the professional area. If this bond stops existing, the owner automatically will change suppliers in the same way that we would leave the bar without ever coming back in.

How can we improve the relationship between the owner and supplier by lowering the amount of establishment closings?

In Overlap, demonstrated solutions have been applied as success stories in different companies. There are several tools to measure the emotional bond between the bar owners and the customers certain essential aspects for a business.

One of them is Turnstyle, a customized WiFi access solution for customers that allow personalized marketing campaigns to increase complementary or cross sales of additional products or services that we want to offer. This improves the customer experience and encourages the recommendation on social networks. In addition, it:

• Offers a POS analysis that helps run campaigns more effectively
• Allows welcome page customization to our WiFi network
• Promotes viral activity on social networks
• Enables authentication through Facebook, Twitter, email, Google, loyalty cards, and even other channels can be studied

In this way, we can start to get to know our customers and segment marketing campaigns effectively. As a result of getting to know them better, we can create a essential link when it’s time to sell. “We are not talking about someone installing a keg of beer in a bar, but instead how to install it and what is the experience that the owner takes from the encounter.” To do this, a lasting partnership must be created and strengthen the so-called touch points, i.e. points of contact with the customer or the so-called “moment of truth”. Another way to meet customers further is conducting internal surveys needed in order to know the real opinion of a customer, with no barriers of any kind.

Currently we must exceed the expectations of customers beyond their needs. People not only react to low prices, but they search for intense experiences that make them feel unique; an extraordinary experience creates a clear competitive advantage and will make the customer’s trip never end.

More information about Overlap’s solutions for the Consumer Goods & Retail industry at: http://www.overlap.net/sectores/consumo-y-retail/fabricantes