Knowing Your Customer

Do you know the field, herd, or operation better than the farmer or producer? Are customers viewed as resources to be “harvested” or are they people looking for certain kinds of interactions and relationships?

It’s happening. With today’s information and technology, we are getting to know the fields better than we know the farmer, the animals better than the producer and the data just keeps coming in.

The bigger question becomes, how are you gathering intelligence on your customers? How are you understanding their buying behaviors, learning preferences and targeting those who are most likely to adopt your solutions? Not because of what their yields are, soil types, animal health or past purchases, but because you have a deeper, predictive relationship with them and with those who support and influence them.

Harvard Business Review discusses how $11 billion annual investment in CRMs may be wasted

“Despite the “R” in CRM and the $11 billion spent on CRM software annually, many companies don’t understand customer relationships at all. They lack relational intelligence—that is, they aren’t aware of the variety of relationships customers can have…. But this is an industrial view of customer relationships, a sign that many firms still think of customers as resources to be harvested for the next up-sell or cross-sell opportunity rather than as individuals looking for certain kinds of interactions.”

Wittenbraker, Jill AverySusan FournierJohn. “Unlock the Mysteries of Your Customer Relationships.” Harvard Business Review, 7 Oct. 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/07/unlock-the-mysteries-of-your-customer-relationships

Beck Ag CEO, Stephanie Liska explains, “We’ve seen how increasing and using customer intelligence can help our clients better understand their target audience and ultimately lead to smarter marketing and sales strategies.”

Customer intelligence goes beyond just collecting the facts.

It’s about understanding the customer on a deeper level, knowing their communication preferences, learning preferences, what they are making decisions on and when then are making those decisions.

“Consumers have always had relationships with brands, but sophisticated tools for analyzing customer data are finally allowing marketing organizations to personalize and manage those relationships.”

Benefits of Customer Intelligence

Clearer segmentation
Connect better with customers
Align customer’s experiences with company value
Spend dollars more effectively
Better tailor value
Better communication
Product innovation

What steps have you taken to go beyond a customer list to build ‘Customer Intelligence’?

Challenge for Agri-Marketers:

To change behavior, we must UNDERSTAND their behaviors and preferences.
To do this, we must gather and USE CUSTOMER INTELLIGENCE
This means CHANGING OUR BEHAVIORS
This means CHANGING OUR EXPECTATIONS

For more information about Beck Ag’s customer intelligence (AgIQ®) services email us at info@BeckAg.com