Educating the Customer

I find the notion that firms must educate customers to the value of their products to be absurd, even more so when it comes from customer experience professionals. The idea is that the product is good just the way it is and does not need to be changed to suit the customer, but the customer doesn't realize how good it is. That's the reason they're not buying it. It's not our fault.

I don't think that's categorically false, but I do think it is mostly false, for most products and most customers, and using such a crutch doesn't merely prevent a firm from effectively solving its problems and prevent them from effective a good solution, it ensures that they continue to waste resources pursing the wrong course of action.

The fact that it is sometimes true, unfortunately, gives people who subscribe to the notion the idea that they are doing the right thing, and should continue to focus their efforts along the same lines.

There will always be some number of people who have the vague sense that they need something but don't quite know what it is and genuinely need someone to tell them, or who know they have a problem but haven't a clue what to do about it, and will continue to live with a situation until someone helps them discover a way out.

And to the degree to which such customers exist, education (advertising) will succeed. The low response rate to advertising shouldn't be taken as an indication that you need to do more advertising, but to retrench and consider whether education is the problem ... it might be something else.

For new brands and new products, education is necessary; but for established brands, it's less likely to be so. If customers are aware of their needs, aware that there is a product that offers a solution, aware that your brand is one such product, and aware of the things they need to do to get their hands on your product, then they know everything they needs to know to be motivated to purchase from you. And yet, they may choose not to.

In that situation, it is not the customer that needs to be educated, but the supplier, as the supplier clearly doesn't understand the reason the customer has chosen not to purchase their product. There are a myriad of reasons: there is no real need, the need does not occur as broadly or frequently as assumed, the product isn't well-suited to serving the need, competing products are better, cheaper, and/or more convenient to obtain, etc.

These hypotheses should be tested with an objective eye. It's easy to witness, and hard to deny, that other brands are cheaper. It's also fairly easy to do an objective test to determine whether your brand is more effective at meeting most practical needs. And if these notions turn out to be false, there are well-tested advertising formats (price comparisons, demonstrations, etc.) that will help to correct the perception of your brand.

The problem vey often is denial: a given brand is more expensive, less effective, and more difficult to obtain than the competitors' offerings - but executives insist that it is otherwise, wish the customers to share the same delusion, and demand that the marketing department should make this happen.

In those situations, the best thing to do is make sure your resume is up to date. If you attempt to rectify executive perception and succeed, you'll do your firm a lot of good and likely make a name for yourself. But it's more likely you will be perceived as being insubordinate or failing to get with their program, which will not be very good for your career. Or if you capitulate and attempt to sell a lie to the market, you will not be successful and may even be seen as unethical.