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1-Page Summary of Wired to Care
Overview
How does a business find out what customers want? Usually, they hire a customer evaluation expert to do some research and send you a report. Then your management team analyzes the findings and hopes that strategy emerges.
Most businesses analyze their data and try to figure out what it means. However, that’s not the best way to connect with customers. This method won’t help you understand why people buy your product or service. The only way to truly understand this is by interacting with your customers and getting a feel for why they do what they do.
In order to connect with your customers, you have to understand their needs. You can’t just rely on reports and surveys because they don’t always tell the whole story.
In this article, the author shares key points from his research. For example, he mentions that Netflix gives employees free DVD players and why they do it (to encourage them to watch movies and learn more about their customers). He also describes how bringing a live tiger into a meeting can help you make better decisions and why working at Nike requires fitness.
Big Idea #1: Companies need an empathetic connection to their customers in order to do well.
A lot of people have been in meetings where they’re trying to make a decision based on statistics and forecasts. People spend time reducing information into manageable chunks of data, but it’s not always helpful.
The danger of this approach is that it’s too simplistic. It doesn’t take into account the emotional aspect of decision making, which is critical in business. To make sound decisions, you need to feel your customers’ pain points and understand their needs on a deeper level.
Empathy is a critical skill in business. It helps you know what your customers want and how they feel about the products that you offer them. For example, when Disney was planning to open an animal kingdom theme park, it didn’t seem like a profitable idea at first because of data showing it wouldn’t be successful. However, one executive brought empathy into play by bringing a Bengal tiger into the room and letting everyone see its appeal. That helped people realize how much potential there was for this type of park and get approval to move forward with the project. Because of that decision, it’s now one of Disney’s most popular parks nationwide and draws in over 8 million visitors annually.
Businesses need to empathize with their customers, but they often remove that connection as the company grows. As a business expands and becomes more successful, it loses touch with its original purpose of serving everyday customers.
For example, when Jell-O recorded a drop in sales, they analyzed the situation by looking at data. However, nobody had actually eaten Jell-O in the past six months. So how could they put themselves into their customers’ shoes?
Now that you know empathy works for business, here are some ways to use it:
Big Idea #2: It’s easier to empathize with people like yourself, so “hire” your customers when you can’t step into their shoes.
We usually hang out with people who share similar interests and views to us. This is because it’s easier for us to connect with them and understand how they think, which makes it easier for us to relate. We can also guess how they would react in certain situations, because we’d likely react the same way ourselves. It therefore makes sense that we feel empathy towards these people as well.
If a company wants to connect with its consumers, it should hire people who are like them.
Harley Davidson has a passion for bikes that is evident in the way they treat their customers. The company’s headquarters are filled with pictures of motorcycles and other symbols from biker events, so it’s clear to customers that Harley Davidson loves bikes just as much as they do. This passion helps the company connect with its customers because people feel like Harley Davidson understands them. As a result, Harley-Davidson has experienced double-digit growth over the past few decades while most of the US motor industry struggled to compete.
