Hearing your customer’s voice
“Plain English”, “consumer speak”, “describe it so your grandmother could understand”. Hopefully we’ve all been in meetings where someone has, quite rightly, reminded us to consider how people in the real world, not sat in the four walls of our organisation, would actually talk about or refer to our brand, product or category.
The issue is sometimes we become desensitised. The longer we do the jobs we do the harder it is to keep our real customers voice in our mind. Think about it. Relying on someone else in your organisation to pull you up in these situations is kind of like the frog in the proverbial pan of gently warming water relying on the frog mate next to him to alert him to the fact it’s getting a tad hot and they might want to consider getting out! Your colleagues are likely as tainted by corporate jargon and cocooned from the real world as you are.
Alternatively, we might rely on our external agency partners, research agencies or comms agencies, to be the voice of the customer. To be honest I think that is equally dangerous, unless your customer spends most of their time in Shoreditch coffee houses.
Yes, I’m being unfair. Not all agencies are that bad. But the fact is they are not with you day in and day out, they come in, they do projects, they leave you with content and they go. More often than not, the customer focused perspective a good piece of research or project may have generated wains and the corporate mind starts to re-exert its influence.
Even the best get it wrong
Are we over dramatising the issue? I don’t think we are. Just look around you, the evidence is there.
Article one, m’lud.
Have a look at this advert from Sure (click on the image for the TV advert). A brand owned by Unilever, the business that wrote the book on effective consumer insight and planning. The business that brought you the game changing ‘Dirt is Good’ campaign in the detergent category. They also produced this….
“….your high adrenaline situations!”
Yes you heard it right…. “Sure Men Adventure, protection that keeps up with your high adrenaline situations”. Who on earth speaks like that? Your average consumer is bound to be thinking “Ah yes, I plan on having a few high adrenaline situations this week, that’s the deodorant for me!”
It’s not just in comms – corporate language leaks in to packaging as well. The world of Pharma is usually rich with examples. Which pack better reflects the language consumers really use?
Yes, we realise there are rules and regulations in Pharma. Years of testing can give very prescriptive indications and shape the required language on pack. But do consumers really understand what an ‘expectorant linctus’ is on the Piriton pack? If it must be on pack in such a prominent position could it not be qualified with something more understandable? The words cough and cold are more understandable but still don’t describe what it actually does?
Regularly connect with your customers to keep you human
Now, we have experience in these industries and it’s not our intention to go knocking brands. We’ll leave that to other social commentators. We don’t know the circumstances in which these decisions were made. We once worked on Andrex Washlets for heaven’s sake. A classic in the world of “We’re going to define a new category of bum wiping with a name that makes no sense whatsoever!”
All we are saying is the more you can bring the customer into your everyday work life then, hopefully, the better you’ll become at challenging each other when potential blunders like this come across your desk. You’ll be more tuned into real humans and less into corporate speak.
On top of that, if you’re still unsure about something, having a low cost simple programme in place to pop out and check language with your customers directly isn’t a bad thing either. You don’t need to spend big £$£$ on ‘professional’ market research.
Speak your customer’s language, get out and MINGLE, be more connected