Creating Insanely Great Customers Chapter 1. Identifying Your Insanely Great Customers<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n Priorities Identifying Insanely Great Customers Looking for love in all the wrong places? Have you seen companies fall in love with their products? They lose sight of their ability to create new breakthrough value for customers, and overlook changes that are taking place in what customers value. For example, RIM\/Blackberry once owned the smartphone market. Then they totally ignored and even ridiculed game-changing technologies and business models that were reflecting a shift in what the market demanded. Or Nortel, who created the first digital phone network and dominated the fiber optic market, but then failed to make the shift to IP routers.<\/span><\/p>\n The result? These \u201cfirms lost some of the most valuable and innovative markets on the planet. Instead of focusing on products, or wringing the last penny out of a functional budget, we need to obsess about our best and brightest customers and their future: what they do, how they do it, why, and how it\u2019s changing. And most importantly, how can we help them be the best at what they do in a continually shifting future? It takes vision and discipline to not get caught up in the day-to-day, and to stay focused on continually accelerating the value we create for customers. But maintaining that focus is what will make tomorrow\u2019s leaders. And the first step is focusing on the right customers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Stay friends with your ideal customers. Love your Insanely Great ones. It\u2019s easy to love customers who buy a lot, the ones who don\u2019t rock the boat or challenge us. Until now, the \u201cideal\u201d customers accepted (as a matter of fact, hung on for dear life to) the status quo. They told us how great our product was and accepted\u2014no, demanded\u2014only small, incremental improvements.\u00a0<\/span>Customers who hang on to the status quo, refusing to investigate, explore, evaluate, or act on changes being driven by the Perfect Storm, are not the ones who will help you and your company create a vibrant future. In fact, they will destroy it. While it\u2019s OK to stay friends with these customers, they\u2019re not the ones you want to fall in love with.<\/span><\/p>\n What makes Insanely Great customers different? They\u2019re crazy! They will also leave you in the dust if you aren\u2019t willing to go on the journey with them. They help you understand where your priorities need to be, and keep you and your team honest and focused on what they and the market will value in the future. Insanely Great customers play big. They innovate in ways that will create breakthrough value, based on future needs. They\u2019re not just investing in product-line or process extensions. They\u2019re investing in things that will transform their customers, their company, and their industry.\u00a0<\/span>Increasingly, they are embracing open innovation. They\u2019re joining with partners and customers in facilitated dialogues and processes of mutual continual learning and innovation. Why? Because they know, regardless of how smart or connected they are, that there are smarter, more-connected people outside their company who can help them achieve these breakthroughs better, faster, and smarter.<\/span><\/p>\n Do you sense a common trait running through these companies? It\u2019s a relentless focus on understanding, prioritizing, and delivering exceptional customer value in everything they do. They have innovation in their blood and the air they breathe. They are directly aligning:<\/span><\/p>\n And they\u2019re connecting these elements over an intelligent, high-speed network. Not one made up of fiber optics and routers (though those help), but a network forged of small, fast-moving teams. These teams are empowered by a vision and a culture that\u2019s obsessed with accelerating the velocity of the customer value they create through continual learning and innovation.<\/span><\/p>\n How to find the Insanely Great customers. Some customers are striving to be Insanely Great. You can help them get there! The number of companies that are starting to get it is growing. You can see evidence in the climbing adoption rates of mobile, cloud, social media, marketing automation, cloud-based computing, and more. Companies increasingly understand the benefits of being in front of the curve and the risks of being behind it, as evidenced by the priorities set by the majority of CEOs captured in studies from organizations like Accenture, IBM, PwC, Fast Company, and more.\u00a0<\/span>Customers ready to up their game are hungry for the dialogue of innovation. They are consuming powerful new ideas, useful content, strong business cases, and best practices. Their companies may not yet be ready to go bravely where no one has previously gone, but they\u2019re willing to follow quickly in the footsteps of the Insanely Great.<\/span><\/p>\n Invest in customer segments that will drive your future growth. As you segment your customers more precisely to help them achieve their innovation goals, high-priority areas will emerge where you can make a unique and powerful contribution. These areas are candidates for Always-On Innovation Zones\u2014areas in which creating breakthrough value will accelerate your customer\u2019s growth and transform their company, and yours too.<\/span><\/p>\n Stay tuned for the next chapter of the book.<\/strong> Yes you can find it on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n Come listen to topics like this and others from innovative industry leaders at\u00a0InsurTech FUSION Summit<\/a>\u00a0on June 18 -19 in San Francisco.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sviaccelerator.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Spice-Catalyst-Book-Creating-Insanely-Great-Customers.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n
\nChapter 1<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/b>At the top of almost every CEO\u2019s priorities are three things: customer engagement, innovation, and operational efficiency. These things have always been critical, but today we are in a digital storm that\u2019s disrupting entire industries, and most CEOs aren\u2019t happy with their progress. Why? Because companies are addressing these priorities as individual initiatives. The solution? Integrate and align these initiatives in every functional area within the company with a single goal: Help customers become Insanely Great by continually accelerating the breakthrough value delivered to them.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Great, now you have the vision! In this sprint, you are going to learn the attributes of Insanely Great Customers, why its important to focus on them, how to identify them and how to incorporate that knowledge into your company\u2019s customer-segmentation process.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>The customers you want to invest your future in have the same passion you do\u2014an obsession with pushing the world forward by delivering Insanely Great value to their customers. They know the challenge ahead: Staying relevant and competitive requires continuously accelerating the value they create.\u00a0This is where Creating Insanely Great Customers starts, not with your products. Establish relationships and build products that help customers address this challenge, and they\u2019ll not only keep coming back, they will help take you and your company to the next level.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>We were in a meeting at Apple discussing how to build market share among enterprises that were buying PCs. About halfway through, Steve Jobs came in. The longer he listened, the more frustrated he became. Finally, he said, \u201cLook, I don\u2019t give a shit about trying to sell to people who don\u2019t get what we\u2019re doing. They\u2019re a waste of our time. Focus on the ones who get it; they\u2019re the ones we can build a future with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>In a nutshell, Insanely Great customers are the ones like you, who get it. They recognize that remaining \u201cwithin the status quo is a death sentence. They\u2019re seeking, exploring, and investing in new and different ways to bring value to their own customers. They\u2019re the ones who are on fire. They\u2019ll rattle your cage to get you to bring new thinking, capabilities, and technologies to the mix. They invite you into the mud, the blood, and the beer of what they\u2019re thinking and doing so that you can be part of creating their next Insanely Great breakthrough.<\/span><\/p>\n\n
\n<\/b>Today\u2019s connected world is noisy and full of digital fingerprints. Companies creating the future are visible in social media, at events, and in their customers\u2019 industries or lives. Whether it\u2019s blogs, YouTube presentations, slide presentations, or live events, they are out there.\u00a0<\/span>They\u2019re also likely to be reaching out to your sales team, customer service and support teams, or even your senior executives, and rattling their cages. They are on a creative quest, and they\u2019re making a joyful noise. The noise of innovation. Listen to them and join in!<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>In addition to identifying and working with the customers who already get it, you must also focus on the next segment\u2014customers who are trying to get it. You\u2019ll find them attending presentations, retaining consulting firms, asking questions, and engaging in the social dialogue surrounding the future of their industries.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Most companies are familiar with market or customer segmentation, the process of identifying customer clusters with unique needs and behavioral characteristics that align with a company\u2019s vision, mission, strategy, and product offerings.\u00a0<\/span>In today\u2019s market, the process of customer segmentation needs to be Always-On. The Perfect Storm is continually reshaping what customers value. Who your customers were, how they approached things, and what they valued even six months ago have changed. You have to stay on top of these changes, because it\u2019s crucial to know who your Insanely Great customers are, and how what creates value for them is changing.\u00a0<\/span>In today\u2019s market, the value the segment places on innovation and where they seek to innovate are key segmentation criteria.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n